McNamara then moved on to The Great, his raunchy series on the life and loves of Catherine the Great before he and Lanthimos got together again to do Poor Things, a work of extreme and compelling weirdness.

For reasons too complicated to go into here, Stone is cast as a creature who begins life with the brain of a newborn baby and the body of a grown woman. Over time, her brain catches up with the rest of her but whatever happens, she remains wilfully and joyfully free of all inhibitions.

She’s part clown, part rebel, and her performance is immeasurably enhanced by McNamara’s dialogue, a comic delight, full of wacky observations and unexpected home truths. It’s a role which demands limitless energy coupled with fine judgment and Stone demonstrates an abundance of both.

To my mind, the Barbie screenplay, by Gerwig and her husband, Noah Baumbach, doesn’t match the quicksilver wit and cleverness of McNamara’s work. And towards the end, it has to bustle around making last-minute adjustments to ensure that its feminist message lands exactly where it should.

Yet, I think it’s been short-changed by the Academy’s decision to classify it as an adapted screenplay rather than an original one because it’s using Mattel’s characters. Barbie and Ken may look familiar but Gerwig and Baumbach’s scenario takes them on an odyssey far removed from the adventures of Barbie and friends in Mattel’s animated TV series.

Mattel’s most notable contribution to the film is the company’s willingness to be sent up. Will Ferrell’s turn as Mattel’s CEO, struggling to remember if they have ever had a woman on their executive team, provides the film with some of its funniest moments.

So, too, does Ryan Gosling’s Ken with his enthusiastic adoption of the macho attitudes he discovers during his wide-eyed excursion into the real world. He becomes the perfect caricature of the puffed-up male who believes himself to be the natural inheritor of all the goodies that life has to offer – an achievement which makes Gosling worthy of his nomination.

The irony is that the listing puts him at odds with the film’s feminist sentiments. Ken is getting the plaudits while Barbie has been overlooked.

And Gerwig has taken the film’s concept in such an unlikely and entertaining direction, embellishing it with some great jokes along the way, that there is every reason for maintaining that she should have been included in the best director nominations.

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However, the Academy has changed a lot since 2016 when it decided to expand its membership to promote cultural diversity. Anatomy of a Fall, French director Justine Triet’s mesmerising thriller, would not have made the best picture list before the reforms. Nor would Celine Song’s Past Lives, a delicate love story about two childhood friends from South Korea who meet again in New York.

And finally, with Lily Gladstone’s best actress nomination for Killers of the Flower Moon, the Academy is belatedly recognising the gifts of the Native American actors who have been gracing the screen in American movies for decades.

As far as the Oscars is concerned, Barbie’s pink and white aesthetic may be out of sync with the times. But there will be other chances for Robbie and Gerwig. Both possess talent enough to cement their film-making futures and extend their already formidable influence as industry players.

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