For “Barbie” editor Nick Houy, his work went beyond telling a narrative and veered into the inner workings of humanity, from what makes a man a man to how we celebrate the finite nature of our existence. Huoy felt that the script set up the beats of feeling for the characters — where they laugh, where they cry — but to tell something as nuanced as what Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach put in their screenplay required a delicate balance between when a moment needed to be personal and when it needed to be parody.
The parody often came through in the sequences featuring Ryan Gosling’s Ken and Will Ferrell’s dimwitted Mattel CEO, and in the elaborate and cartoony journey from Barbie Land to the real world.