From its scatological opening minutes to its self-indulgent final moments,Babylonis a movie that is, in a word, challenging. At nearly three-and-a-half hours, the latest show biz drama from Whiplash director Damien Chazelle is a marathon through the transition from silent to sound films in late 1920s/early 1930s Hollywood. It’s just too bad that the demanding runtime couldn’t be filled with a story of any substantial meaning.
Babylonrevels in the excess of the time, but is also itself excessive: the visuals, the sound, the performances, everything in this movie is so in-your-face at all times that it genuinely feels like a struggle to keep watching. There are entertaining moments for those willing to sift through the muck, butBabylonis not greater than the sum of its parts.
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The story begins with a party at a Hollywood producer’s home. Packed to the brim with nudity, alcohol, drugs, and a jazz band just killing it on stage, it’s a solid indicator of the movie that is going to come. For nearly 20 minutes, audiences are subjected to the kind of debauchery that could only take place in the most elite of circles. It is at this party that the three main characters of the film are introduced. There’s Manny (Diego Calva) a hired hand who dreams of working in show business; Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), a silent movie star who is still in his prime; and Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), a party-crashing wannabe actress with a wild streak.
Nellie and Manny strike up a friendship here (over a massive pile of cocaine), and Manny also finds his way into Jack’s life when he gives him a ride home. Both he and Nellie wind up on set the next day, leading to a whirlwind day of shooting. The energy of this sequence, taking place over the course of one frantic day of filming, promises a kind of fun that the rest of the movie can never quite live up to.It highlights the challenges of early Hollywoodbefore there were even actual studios in which to film, and the lengths that filmmakers had to go to in order to work in their new medium.
From here, the tale Chazelle spins is one of rises and falls, excess and its consequences, and the inability to adapt to a changing landscape. Unfortunately,Babylonnever quite feels like one cohesive story, often falling into a pattern of acting more likea series of loosely connected vignettes. Some of them are great, such as watching a filmmaking crew struggle to adjust to the demands of making sound films. Others are practically nonsensical, like a party that culminates in a battle with a rattlesnake.
Tonally, the movie is all over the place. It’s never quite sure if it’s a madcap farce satirizing the wild early days of the film industry, or if it’s a genuine drama about the real struggles that people faced making movies in the early twentieth century. Some early commentary onBabylonremarked on the fact that the movie’s BIPOC characters, particularly Jazz musician Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) and Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li) are let down by the story. This is an accurate statement, as both characters are given short shrift by the script. Lady Fay Zhu’s glossed-over story is even more egregious as she isthe movie’s only openly LGBTQ character. Sidney’s story is more fleshed-out, but just barely, and it often feels more like his struggles with fame only serve to highlight the changes in other characters, particularly Manny.
Meanwhile, Jack and Nellie also never feel like they are fully developed, though Jack is at least given a slightly more meaningful story arc.Margot Robbie is giving it her all, proving that she is one of Hollywood’s top performers, but she is let down by the fact that Nellie ends up staying as one-dimensional as when she is first introduced. It’s an acting performance in a role that doesn’t entirely deserve the effort. Diego Calva’s performance is probably the biggest highlight ofBabylon. Manny’s arc makes a lot of sense, and Calva sells the subtle transition from powerless to powerful that takes place over years. He also has great chemistry with Robbie. The two of them play a convincing pair of friends who are really just dragging each other down.
If only the rest ofBabyloncould be as subtle. More often than not, the best word to describe the movie is “abrasive.” There’s an odd obsession with bodily fluids running throughout that’s more distracting (and disgusting) than anything, and the sheer amount of screaming, violence, and vulgarity really starts to add up after a while, making for a viewing experience that’s more exhausting than exhilarating.Babylonreally piles up all of these issues in one late sequence that isa metaphorical descent into hell for the characters, and perhaps a literal one for anyone watching in the theater.
All of these shortcomings might not have been so egregious if the movie had anything meaningful to say, but once the credits roll, it’s hard not to think ofBabylonas a large vessel that’s only half-full. Before getting to those credits, though, audiences will have to struggle to sit through one of the most self-congratulatory and self-indulgent montages ever put to film. The final scene also lampshades the similaritiesBabylonhas to another famous movie, one that would likely be more enjoyable to watch.
Babylonis, if anything, ambitious. It often feels like Chazelle was given totally free reign to make exactly the kind of movie he wanted, but this ill-conceived project could have benefitted greatly from some outside intervention. As it is,Babylonis a bit of a contradiction: overstuffed, but oddly empty. Movies about the film industry are famously hard to sell to general audiences, and this isn’t likely to change that.Babylonmay have some genuinely entertaining parts hiding in all the excess, but when it takes this much work to find them, is it even worth it?
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Babylon
Babylon is a film by director Damien Chazelle (La La Land) that focuses on characters during the great Hollywood boom - when silent films moved to talking pictures, and the medium was reinvented. During this era of decadence and glamorous lifestyles in pure excess, Babylon explores the rise and fall of fictional Hollywood greats that mirror nonfictional actors and actresses throughout American history.
