by guest critic Michael Clark
I’ll open by shamelessly riffing on a joke delivered by Johnny Carson from the opening monologue of one of his stints hosting the Academy Awards: Babylon is two hours of sparkling entertainment spread out over a three-hour movie.
I’d like to say Babylon is a love it or hate it kind of affair but for me, it’s a love it and hate it kind of deal.
I’d like to say Babylon is a love it or hate it kind of affair but for me, it’s a love it and hate it kind of deal.
For the first (almost) two hours, Babylon is nothing short of brilliant. Writer and director Damien Chazelle continues his love affair with creative artsy types that now makes up 4/5’s of his feature output.
Chazelle’s first and third efforts – Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench and La La Land - were musicals about the entertainment industry. His second (and still best) is Whiplash, the story of an aspiring jazz drummer. Babylon is a deep dive into Hollywood’s testy and uneasy transition from silent films to “talkies.”
Babylon opens in 1926 with animal wrangler Manny (Diego Calva) attempting to transport an elephant to a party at the home of a big-time producer. If you find the inclusion of the words “elephant,” “party,” and “home” in the same sentence odd, you’re not alone.
Upon arrival, Manny meets Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), a Jersey girl completely lacking in restraint, inhibition, or decorum who believes the sheer will of wanting fame as an actress will actually make it happen. With help from Manny’s adroit improvisation, the uninvited Nellie gets into the party, imbibes more cocaine than Al Pacino in Scarface, totally rules the party, gets discovered, and lands an acting gig before sunrise.
This is just part of a fearless and unhinged 37-minute opening salvo; an event top-heavy with unchecked bacchanalia, libertine debauchery, and colossal excess. This stretch also introduces the most popular actor in the world (Brad Pitt as Jack Conrad), the vicious, cold-hearted gossip monger Elinor St. John (Jean Smart), and trumpeter Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), an exacting band leader providing the party music.
In addition to Nellie, Manny comes to the aid of the beyond-hammered Jack by getting him home in one piece. When Manny wakes up the next morning, the surprisingly chipper Jack – without actually saying so – hires him as his new assistant. Just like that, Manny is now in the movie business.
Shifting down a gear or two, Chazelle goes from Goodfellas overdrive to the cruise control of The Departed while juggling and weaving the stories of the five principal characters like a true master. During this 75-or-so-minute stretch, he exhibits the confidence and deft touch of a Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola, or Tarantino and it is something to behold.
And. Then. It. All. Crashes. Down.
Just before the two-hour mark, Chazelle introduces a flimsy organized crime subplot into the mix, which stops the narrative stone dead cold in its tracks. Co-producer Tobey Maguire shows up as drug/gambling kingpin McKay whose oily, rash-riddled pale skin is almost as repulsive as his snickering, skeevy persona.
McKay and his goons all but force two other characters to attend a subterranean freak show which makes the party at the start of the movie look like a 4:00 tea in 19th century England. Adding insult to injury, this segment is saturated with a harsh red and dull black color palate which is as unpleasant as the content.
A montage exhibited at a theater decades later wraps everything up and is admittedly arresting and inspiring. Had Chazelle scrapped the McKay segment completely and ended with this jaw-dropping sequence, Babylon would be an unqualified must-see.
In 2018, at the age of 32, Chazelle became the youngest person ever to win a Best Director Academy Award for La La Land and the movie itself snagged an additional five Oscars. Costing just $30 million, it brought in over 15 times as much. Chazelle’s follow-up – the highly-overrated First Man – made a smaller profit ($46 million) but at least landed in the black.
Since its release in late December, Babylon – budgeted at upwards of $80 million – has taken in an embarrassing $11 million. Compare that to the first movie featuring Robbie and Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - costing $90 million and taking in over $377 million) and there’s no other way to recognize Babylon as anything else but an undisputable flop.
It will be interesting to see what happens to Chazelle’s career going forward. Few filmmakers ever fully recover from a devastating financial shellacking such as this.
Babylon is rated R for strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity, bloody violence, drug use, and pervasive language.
Grade: B-
Chazelle’s first and third efforts – Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench and La La Land - were musicals about the entertainment industry. His second (and still best) is Whiplash, the story of an aspiring jazz drummer. Babylon is a deep dive into Hollywood’s testy and uneasy transition from silent films to “talkies.”
Babylon opens in 1926 with animal wrangler Manny (Diego Calva) attempting to transport an elephant to a party at the home of a big-time producer. If you find the inclusion of the words “elephant,” “party,” and “home” in the same sentence odd, you’re not alone.
Upon arrival, Manny meets Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), a Jersey girl completely lacking in restraint, inhibition, or decorum who believes the sheer will of wanting fame as an actress will actually make it happen. With help from Manny’s adroit improvisation, the uninvited Nellie gets into the party, imbibes more cocaine than Al Pacino in Scarface, totally rules the party, gets discovered, and lands an acting gig before sunrise.
This is just part of a fearless and unhinged 37-minute opening salvo; an event top-heavy with unchecked bacchanalia, libertine debauchery, and colossal excess. This stretch also introduces the most popular actor in the world (Brad Pitt as Jack Conrad), the vicious, cold-hearted gossip monger Elinor St. John (Jean Smart), and trumpeter Sidney Palmer (Jovan Adepo), an exacting band leader providing the party music.
In addition to Nellie, Manny comes to the aid of the beyond-hammered Jack by getting him home in one piece. When Manny wakes up the next morning, the surprisingly chipper Jack – without actually saying so – hires him as his new assistant. Just like that, Manny is now in the movie business.
Shifting down a gear or two, Chazelle goes from Goodfellas overdrive to the cruise control of The Departed while juggling and weaving the stories of the five principal characters like a true master. During this 75-or-so-minute stretch, he exhibits the confidence and deft touch of a Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola, or Tarantino and it is something to behold.
And. Then. It. All. Crashes. Down.
Just before the two-hour mark, Chazelle introduces a flimsy organized crime subplot into the mix, which stops the narrative stone dead cold in its tracks. Co-producer Tobey Maguire shows up as drug/gambling kingpin McKay whose oily, rash-riddled pale skin is almost as repulsive as his snickering, skeevy persona.
McKay and his goons all but force two other characters to attend a subterranean freak show which makes the party at the start of the movie look like a 4:00 tea in 19th century England. Adding insult to injury, this segment is saturated with a harsh red and dull black color palate which is as unpleasant as the content.
A montage exhibited at a theater decades later wraps everything up and is admittedly arresting and inspiring. Had Chazelle scrapped the McKay segment completely and ended with this jaw-dropping sequence, Babylon would be an unqualified must-see.
In 2018, at the age of 32, Chazelle became the youngest person ever to win a Best Director Academy Award for La La Land and the movie itself snagged an additional five Oscars. Costing just $30 million, it brought in over 15 times as much. Chazelle’s follow-up – the highly-overrated First Man – made a smaller profit ($46 million) but at least landed in the black.
Since its release in late December, Babylon – budgeted at upwards of $80 million – has taken in an embarrassing $11 million. Compare that to the first movie featuring Robbie and Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - costing $90 million and taking in over $377 million) and there’s no other way to recognize Babylon as anything else but an undisputable flop.
It will be interesting to see what happens to Chazelle’s career going forward. Few filmmakers ever fully recover from a devastating financial shellacking such as this.
Babylon is rated R for strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity, bloody violence, drug use, and pervasive language.
Grade: B-
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