- Damien Chazelle's "Babylon" stars Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Brad Pitt, and Jean Smart.
- The entire cast gives their all in this visually stunning movie set in 1920s Hollywood.
Director Damien Chazelle has returned to the big screen after four years with his love letter to the golden era of Hollywood set at the time when silent movies transitioned to using sound.
Although it feels like a much more extravagant beast than Chazelle's previous movies, it doesn't quite live up to the hype of "Whiplash" or "La La Land."
Chazelle once again looks at ambition, greed, and hubris through the Hollywood lens with a sprawling cast that ultimately delivers a riotous performance in this overstuffed story.
That being said, it's still an utterly stunning jaunt through the era, as Margot Robbie's Nellie LaRoy parties her way to stardom and Diego Calva's Manny Torres marvels at the beauty of cinema.
'Babylon' showcases the ecstatic highs of Hollywood, as well as the crushing lows
The film's opening throws audiences into a rip-roaring party that feels wildly frenetic, barely giving the viewer time to breathe as they take in the absurd carnival of chaos unfolding on screen, whether it's the copious amount of drugs, the giant elephant thundering through the house, or the sex workers upstairs catering to the grim fantasies of the rich and famous.
Robbie brings that same unhinged energy to her performance as Nellie. She revels in being a free spirit, which begins to get tiresome for the audience when she keeps making all the wrong choices. But she's undeniably entertaining, and the character is destined for memes (especially given one spit-take-inducing line about "sticking some cocaine up my pussy").
Her lively nature works perfectly in tandem with Manny, who sees the pure beauty in the power of cinema. It's an unsubtle nod to exploitation in Hollywood, spitting out would-be stars with no hesitation when they start to decline.
In addition to following Nellie as her addiction to drugs and gambling threatens her success and Manny as he climbs the studio ladder, "Babylon" also tells the story of Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), a silent film star who can't seem to find success in sound pictures, and faces the possibility that he just isn't cut out for the industry anymore.
The story, written by Chazelle, is about ambition, greed, and love — but it's also simply way too long.
Comedy and a dose of horror can't save the lengthy runtime
The movie is blisteringly funny in places, with dashes of slapstick that work well amid the (slightly overwhelming) mayhem. But even the surprisingly gooey moments of comedy can't stop "Babylon" from feeling overblown and plodding.
That weighty runtime of three hours and eight minutes gets in the way, even though all of these individual stories are brilliantly told. Together they just pull the film in too many different directions, which gets irritating.
Chazelle does deliver a genuinely haunting sequence in the third act which just about saves the film from dragging itself over the finish line, but it feels tacked on to shake the audience awake ahead of the emotional ending.
As Jean Smart's sharp-tongued critic Elinor St. John tells Jack, actors will be forever immortalized as "angels and ghosts." It's definitely the other side of the coin to "La La Land," but it feels alive in a whiskey-drinking, cocaine-snorting, monologue-aggrandizing way that Chazelle's previous work doesn't.
That's partly down to how fast-paced a lot of the scenes are, but Justin Hurwitz's pounding score has a big part to play too. Both "Voodoo Mama" and "Call Me Manny" in particular are a call to party.
Ultimately, "Babylon" is a gorgeous period epic about the beauty and pain of Hollywood, but it definitely starts to buckle under the weight of its own ambition.
"Babylon" is in theaters from December 23, 2022, in the United States, and January 20, 2023, in the UK.