Babylon Movie Review: The Soul That Margot Robbie Puts Into Nellie
Cast: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li, P.J. Byrne, Lukas Haas, Olivia Hamilton
Director: Damien Chazelle
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Damian Chazelle returns to the charge with a long film of more than three hours, Babylon, in which he offers his particular tribute to the world of cinema. Premiere on January 20. Damian Chazelle ‘s new film promises to be the most divisive: after attracting attention with the magnificent Whiplash, La La Land and First Man completely reinvent themselves in Babylon, which essentially tells the same story as The Artist (the devastating incursion of sound and displacement of lands in Hollywood) but from the greatest of impostures, appealing to the politically incorrect.
La La Land was immediately destined to become a film capable of entering the hearts of viewers, will Babylon be, despite still being one of the most anticipated films of 2023? Easy to say in 2023, after excellent films with a similar theme such as The Fabelmans have been snubbed by the public. As Chazelle teaches us in a scene from his latest, wonderful failure, sometimes in front of your film you don’t know how to judge, and you just must wait for the reaction of the audience in the theater: will they laugh with you or at you?
Babylon Movie Review: The Story
Babylon is set in Bel Air in the late 1920s. The film industry is still in its infancy and a continuous creative frenzy circulates, on the sets and in the opulent parties that bring together stars, unskilled workers and upstarts who gravitate around the world of cinema. The disheveled and discrete Nellie LaRoy, played by Margot Robbie, manages to infiltrate a particularly sumptuous party (amply anticipated by the Babylon trailer). Helping her break into the party is Manuel, a Mexican handyman played by Diego Calva. Manny falls madly in love with the girl and shares with her the dream of somehow getting into cinema. She is convinced that she is already a star. She has never set foot on a set, but she is by nature, charisma and attitude.
It is precisely at this fateful party that the two meet Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt’s character), a very fast actor who, consciously, will help Nellie and Manny make their dream come true. However, the lives of the three are about to be overwhelmed by the end of silent cinema: the introduction of sound is upon us and will change the world of cinema forever. It escapes no one that we are living precisely in one of those crises that are reshaping the way we relate to cinema. James Cameron believes that he has the infallible formula to attract the public to theaters, which is none other than giving them a megalomaniac show (it is open to debate if it is an empty shell) but of course, streaming is once again changing the landscape.
Chazelle, who writes and directs Babylon, comes to tell us that it doesn’t matter, that in the end, the only thing that matters is that the films manage to reach their audience: that they marvel, laugh, cry (or get toasty, or go to give four kisses to the seats in the back), but keep going to the rooms. The idea is magnificent, and the way to capture it goes from genius and black humor to the insufferable and unnecessarily stretched jerk. It is a very self-conscious film of contrasts (perhaps too much) that has its footing only thanks to an outrageous performance by the brilliant Margot Robbie, all photogenic and delivery. Nellie LaRoy is a transcript of her Harley Quinn trading greasy sandwiches for tons of cocaine. As much as she feels proud of her work (no wonder), she has never done anything better than Tonya.
Babylon Movie Review and Analysis
Babylon is, as its title announces, a metaphor that the Mecca of cinema was once a Babylon of lust and eschatology. Chazelle makes it clear from minute one and is not afraid to be iconoclastic by crushing the idealization of the world of cinema (which even he had served in La La Land, by the way). For the rest, it is a movie full of stories: a movie of movies, if you will, and therefore also a container of stories in itself. Some of them are sensational, with well-constructed narrative arcs and an interesting discourse (the relationship of critics with cinema, the inferiority complex of films concerning theater, and the changes that shaped the medium we know today…).
Others seem like added globs that find neither the space nor the depth they need (the advent of censorship, xenophobia, hypocrisy, lesbian relationships, etc.). The gallery of characters is overwhelming, but of all of them, only a handful of them matter to us, who are the ones who sustain the story and give it meaning. Among its strengths, is a scandalous soundtrack and an outstanding and thunderous sound mix, in line with that of Elvis (and reminiscent, in its quieter parts, of La La Land). In the end, the frustrating feeling is that by pruning what is left over (which is not little) and with a different assembly, a major work of art could have come out of here.
What works in Babylon – in addition to the usual amazing technical component – is the attitude with which Chazelle tackles this story, the same as Nellie. He throws himself headlong into the story, he rarely moves thinking about the feelings of the public, moved by the urgency to tell his stories, as a film lover. At its best Babylon is a splendid ode to the underdogs of silent cinema, told of those who fear they are the new, last stars of a dying art.
In its worst moments (ie the second half of the film), Babylon is incapable of taming its excesses, getting out of the same stereotypes it mythologizes, and proving incapable of focusing on what works. It is a pity, for example, how the film reserves little space for sensational characters such as Li Jun Li’s Lady Fay Zhu and Katherine Waterston’s director Ruth Azner to focus on excesses and useless jokes. Even poor Diego Calva has very little to do, having in his hands a protagonist who is little more than a narrator.
Babylon Movie Review: The Last Words
Despite its many flaws, Babylon is a film worth seeing, because it romanticizes a Hollywood era full of creativity and chaos, telling it from the point of view of those who lost that battle. If you love excessive and provocative movies, you’ll love this. Flashes of genius buried in scatology: the concept of what Chazelle wants to do is very interesting, but the on-screen translation is tortuous and causes a mix of sensations that range from outright disgust to delight. It is the most irregular film of her career. Margot Robbie is a goddess. Point. The mix of sounds (with echoes of La La Land on a laconic piano) is amazing.
