Babylon follows the rise and fall of several figures during the 1920s Hollywood silent film era. But sound (and change) are on the horizon.
Babylon is “a confluence of bad taste and pure magic,” as Jean Smart’s character describes star-on-the-rise Nellie LaRoy. In the mess of its unfocused plot and spectacle is a rousing story of evolution, fame, and, yes, the power of movies that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
Diego Calva and Margot Robbie’s storylines are the most successful as two Hollywood dreamers on parallel paths to success. However, the movie gets distracted by its own flash and their character development gets stunted. Still, the movie manages to land on its feet, just barely.
It is a huge swing. If it’s a hit or miss I’m not entirely sure. What I do know is it didn’t lose me for its three-plus hour runtime and the ending left me reeling. Did it earn it? Not quite. But Chazelle knows how to put a movie together, even if he’s not fully mastered the storytelling part.
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By the time the title card for Babylon roars onto screen we’ve seen every bodily fluid imaginable—blood, sweat, tears, cum, bile, spit, shit (both human and animal). There’s song, dance, contortion, acrobatics, and an elephant. Welcome to Hollywood circa the late 1920s. The film industry is hitting its stride and dreamers from all over converge to have their hopes crushed and realized. But that’s what all of the films in director Damien Chazelle’s short but prolific filmography are about—people fighting to realize their dreams. In Babylon, our dreamers are New Jersey-born aspiring actress Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) and Mexican-American film assistant Manny Torres (Diego Calva). For them, unlike the pair at the center of La La Land, the dream is very real. They shoot for the moon and actually get there. Unfortunately for them, there’s also this thing called gravity.
However, before the crash, Babylon is a cocaine-fueled, debaucherous love letter to excess and the people who dare to dream. Nellie and Manny meet for the first time at a… party. Let’s just say that this makes The Hangover look quaint. In classic Chazelle style the camera whips around the hilltop mansion catching glimpses of people dancing, drinking, fucking, and doing every illicit substance imaginable—it’s pure heartracing movie magic. In the chaos we also meet our cast of characters. There’s Nellie and Manny, of course. Then there’s silent film star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), the man everyone wants to meet and with one glance can send you to stardom. On stage playing the sax is trumpeter Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo) who along with his band support a song from Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), a sort of composite between screen legends Anna May Wong and Marlene Dietrich. Lastly we have Elinor St. John (Jean Smart), a journalist covering the industry with kink for sensationalism.
Over the next decade or so we follow each character as they grow in the industry. After the party, Manny is tapped to be Jack’s assistant while Nellie is asked to fill in on a film for an actress that… had a little too much fun. Just when you thought Babylon couldn’t get any more impressive, Chazelle treats us to another quick-cutting romp through the silent movie era as we watch multiple projects being filmed at the same time on the same studio lot. There’s Nellie’s prostitute in a bar movie where the director (Olivia Hamilton), in awe, watches as she’s able to cry on command in a hundred different ways. Then there’s Jack’s Grecian war epic, hilariously directed by Spike Jonze playing a very angry German director, complete with real explosions causing real injury to the extras. Meanwhile, Manny is tasked with retrieving a specific camera before the sun goes down and they lose their light. After that day, Nellie and Manny are hooked and on the up and up.
The kinetic energy of the first hour of the movie is equal parts overwhelming and enthralling. There’s isn’t a minute when something, whether in the foreground or background, keeps you hooked on the screen. And there’s of course Margot Robbie whose expressive face, spot on New Jersey accent, and full commitment to the off-the-wall but genuinely talented Nellie keep you rooting for her and Diego Calva whose charm, leading man good looks, and earnest, if not, naïve demeanor keep you hooked on him whenever he’s on screen. It’s always satisfying to watch people succeed (the same way it’s so satisfying to watch Sebastian and Mia fall in love in La La Land).
But then, along comes sound.
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And just like Singin’ In The Rain before it, nobody is ready for change as evidenced by perhaps one of the funniest scenes of the year where an entire studio can’t get on the same page to film a scene with sound—it ends with someone dying (if you know, you know). However, the fall is nowhere near as graceful as the rise. The movie begins to fall apart when it loses focus on its main characters. With asides to Adepo’s Sidney, whose storyline involving race is stunted by his screen time, and Lady Fay, who we never really get to know, we start to lose track of the development of our main protagonists. Even Jack’s climactic final scene, which is impactful regardless because of Chazelle’s sensitive direction, loses some impact because we don’t get to experience his journey there as deeply. It’s like the studio asked Chazelle who the main character was and he just said, “yes.”
As Elinor writes a story about Nellie’s latest film, she calls it “a confluence of pure magic and trash.” That is exactly what Babylon is. When it is great, it lands among the stars. But when it misses, it crashes back down to earth—albeit in spectacular fashion. The third act, which takes us back to the lunacy of the first with a delicious appearance by Tobey Maguire, recaptures some of the magic and brings the movie to a roaring crescendo that leaves us buzzing. It helps the movie become greater than the sum of its parts. Even with a disappointing middle hour, Babylon is worth its three-hour runtime. The greatest litmus test for an ensemble movie like this is whether I’ll miss hanging out with its characters—and I will. Unhinged Nellie, steadfast Manny, enigmatic Lady Fay, they all left something of an impact. And that is all they ever wanted.
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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.
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Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.