I'll be honest about the fact that I didn't like Barbarianānot because it was bad, I just didn't enjoy many of its choices.
But there were aspects I found interesting and obviously have been thinking about, so I can't say it wasn't effective. Mostly I've been thinking about how aspects remind me of Parasite.
Spoilers for both movies below.
Both movies deal with an imbalance of power (class disparity and gender disparity) and show how someone even well meaning and "nice" can abuse that power (the rich Park family is fairly polite and shown sympathetically, and Keith makes some well meaning but inappropriate remarks to Tess).
Both make use of literal different levels in homes to illustrate the descending nature of the characters. In Parasite, the Park family lives at the top in their mansion, the Kim family not quite underground in their half-basement and below them all is the man in the bunker. This is obviously a commentary on their place in society/the economy and how they are viewed in their roles.
In Barbarian the levels represent the men in the film. Keith is mostly fine, just slightly oblivious to how this situation is for Tess. And even once she seems to accept he's not a threat, he still dismisses her legitimate fear after she's seen the basement. She's clearly horrified but he refuses to accept that it's justified and it costs him his life and Tess her freedom.
Keith is the airbnb, the cute little house. Under it is AJ. he's the basement with the horrible room and bed and bucket. AJ is a rapist and therefore a monster in his own right, but in a way that's fairly socially acceptable. He can assault a woman but still feel convinced he's a good person, and rant to his friends about it because people will tolerate rapists like AJ.
The basement, which is terrible enough on its own, leads to the tunnels. The tunnels are Frank, the ultimate monster. A monster so terrible even AJ is disgusted. The monster underneath it all. All these men are represented by the different levels within the house.
The structure of the film in Barbarian mirrors this as well. It's very unusual for a film to introduce major characters so late, and it does this with both AJ and Frank. And I realized it's because it's introducing the men level by level.
At first we meet Keith, in act 1. He's fairly innocuous. The gateway man, if you will. He doesn't make it to act 2.
Act 2 introduces AJ, in his own story. We see him living his own personal nightmare (well deserved) before joining the central story. In act 3 were introduced to Frank. Again, we see his own story for a bit. We watch him shop, watch him stalk that woman. Here the story all ties together, on the final level with Frank. All of this has been his doing.
The final similarity I found is the name. On first viewing you might think the Kim family are the parasites, feeding off the Parks familys money. But maybe it's the other way around, and it's the Park family feeding off their labour. Maybe the Parasite is the guy in the bunker. Maybe not.
With Barbarian there's less debate, as by the end of the film we known for sure Frank is the barbarian (although honestly AJ kind of is too) but at first it may seem to refer to the woman in the tunnels. Certainly she seems monstrous at first, and is extremely violent. But by the end we understand she's just another victim of Frank. The real barbarian isn't a woman made into a monster it's the men who see women as commodities to use.
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