Babylon

By now in his career, Damien Chazelle is a "butts in seats" director for me. That doesn't always translate 1:1 with general audiences, but he could pretty much make anything and I'd be interested, of which, Babylon seems to be that "anything". 

His first film, Whiplash (9/10 RRS, #7 Best Film of 2014) remains an utterly fantastic, brutal look at a music teacher and his student. La La Land (9.5/10 RRS and the #1 Best Film of 2016) was near-perfect, featured iconic music, and reunited Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling's palpable chemistry. First Man (9/10 RRS and the #9 Best Film of 2018) - his space epic - was an exercise in precision and distancing himself from only music, to great effect. 

From that monumental list of films, the dude's average score with me is 9.25 and he has a knack for finding himself on my Top 10 list come year-end, even winning the whole thing at one point. 

Babylon then, will certainly be lowering that average, and would probably be lucky to make my Top 15 (we'll see), but I am happy to state that I didn't fall into the camp that outright hates it. I would have been very sad if that was the case, purely because I think so highly of Chazelle. 

Within minutes of watching Babylon, it's obvious why it has proven divisive and while the rest of the film "gets better" (more on that in a sec), it never recovers from some of its questionable or outright poor creative decisions. The primary one of those being the over-the-top, excessive, "shock" elements that you may have already heard of. There's honestly no reason for any (save for a single one) of them and they are an unfortunate early blemish on an otherwise entertaining film. Not to mention, the decision to include them feels like a teenager was writing the script. A perfect example? As a man is helping to push a cart with an elephant up a hill, Babylon decides it's a good idea to provide a close up of the elephant's anus as it projectile diarrheas all over the man...for a solid 10+ seconds. And for what? Could not the same exact laugh/moment have been accomplished with him being pooped on by a single, solid elephant turd sans the close up of a butthole (trust me, this is becoming a paragraph I cannot believe I'm writing)? There's a handful of questionable decisions like this within the first 20 minutes that feel there to try an achieve something they don't...and it's likely part of the reason the film is bombing because word gets around that you see an elephant anus and golden shower (another, completely pointless element) within the first 5 minutes. Given Chazelle's resume thus far, it's baffling to me that all of this made it in here when it adds absolutely nothing to the story whatsoever (e.g. golden shower, midget pogo jumping on a fake penis that "ejaculates" on a crowd) or the humor it wanted could have been achieved without going overboard (e.g. aforementioned elephant poop). 

"Ay, is that Leo? I did a movie with him once!"

Similarly, Babylon is an excess in storytelling, creating a winding narrative that never really figures out how to wrap up its story. In broad strokes, I enjoyed what was here, but the movie takes so many detours at times that it begs the question: "what was the point of all this"? A late-stage descent into a tunnel of horrors is a perfect example of these two excess elements combining into one; both a creative storytelling nonsensical moment as well as a gratuitous excess in shock for no reason. By the time the overly-extended final scenes were playing out - an attempt at an excess look at cinema's impact on humans - I almost wanted to shout aloud: "For God's sake, wrap it up, Chazelle!"

Unfortunately, those things are "biggies"...they cannot be ignored. And it's a bummer because the parts that exist outside of those elements is quite fantastic, and hilarious. There is definitely a 9/10 movie in here somewhere, and moments of it shine brightly. Margot Robbie has a wonderful turn as Nellie LaRoy - an up and coming starlet with a wild side - and her story is engrossing, plus she gets to display some of the best comedic chops we've seen from her yet. Brad Pitt plays an aging mega movie star, Jack Conrad, and basically gets to just be an always-drunk version of himself, gaining many laughs in the process. Similar to Bullet Train or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, this is him casual and smooth, yet making a huge impact. Diego Calva plays our film's heart - a worker in LA who desperately wants to be working on movie sets. His arc is unquestionably the best one, and largely the focal point of everything. Finally, Jovan Adepo as Sidney Palmer has an intriguing story/arc, but it feels unfortunately short changed in the process of - say it with me - excess characters. The humor comes largely from the script, with some of the year's funniest bits being in Babylon. From a person dying on a movie set (but he had a drinking problem!) to Brad Pitt's drunken behavior to take after take in a sound booth...there are genuinely uproarious times to be had throughout the gargantuan 3 hour runtime.

Also impressive - and part of the reason the film even survives some of its poorer decisions - is Damien Chazelle's filmmaking itself. He's a very talented director and it shows in multiple ways here. There are long cuts, thoughtful cinematography, and really fast editing between characters, all adding up to a "big" movie for him and displaying other sides of his skillset I don't think we saw a whole lot of in previous efforts. Also worth mentioning is a driving, memorable, and potentially iconic original score from long-time collaborator Justin Hurwitz. I'm not sold on it being the best of the year...we'll see!...but it fits the film perfectly and is a blast to listen to. 

I hope Babylon allowed Chazelle to get "something" out of his system. I 100% understand why it's polarizing and there are such poor questionable decisions in here that I'm still a bit shocked. And the shock comes less from a place of "eww that's gross" (though that's certainly true) but more so from the understanding that this could have been another Chazelle classic, if only he'd shown some restraint and organization. Instead, what we're left with is a deeply flawed, but (at times) deeply entertaining conglomeration of what could have been.

CONS

• Some of the most painfully dumb and unnecessary "shock" decisions I've ever seen in a film
• Lack of restraint and organization with story telling + a wildly overdone finale. This should have never exceeded 2.5 hours
• Honestly, there's not much more than those two things ^^ but they're biggies

PROS

• Chazelle's direction is still some of the best around. He throws a lot at the screen in terms of technique and much of it works very well
• The writing is often hilarious and there are some intensely hilarious scenes throughout
• Performances throughout are spot-on. Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Diego Calva, and Jovan Adepo all deserve special shout out
• Broad strokes of the story - about 4 different people's careers in Hollywood - is entertaining and I enjoyed the majority of it
• A perfectly suited, incredible original score that may grow on me (a lot?) over time

Rath's Review Score | 7/10