Movie Reaction: Babylon

Formula: Singin' in the Rain ^ Boogie Nights

 

It was either Robert Frost or S.E. Hinton who said nothing stays golden. All great times much come to an end. Change is inevitable. As one thing rots, another grows. There are many idioms saying virtually the same thing. And add Babylon to the list.

 

Babylon is about the early days of Hollywood. It starts in 1926, during the height of the silent film era and before the Hays code cleaned Hollywood up. These were the days when the movie business was run by whoever was insane enough to show up. Specifically, the movie starts on a night that arguably marks the height of the era. It's a lavish party bacchanal at a film executive's mansion. And it marks the start of the three main characters' stories (as well as several supporting characters). There's Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), the biggest silent film actor of his time, basking in his centrality to the moment. There's Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) a soon-to-be starlet who was built for this moment. And there's Manny Torres (Diego Calva) an all-purpose handyman at the party who dreams of something bigger. Over the course of the film, we see how their assorted stories intersect and track their specific rises and falls as the studio goes through many changes.

 

This is a lot of movie. It's well over three hours long and needs every minute. I couldn't cover everything that happens or every character here if I wanted. What Damien Chazelle has made is an epic about Hollywood's craziest years like we've never seen before. Because, we have seen this story before. Many times. Singin' in the Rain is about it: something Babylon is very aware of. The Artist won every award for telling this story. Shows like The Last Tycoon were about the fallout of this era. Babylon carves out its own space in this well-trod time by being the movie most about the excess.

 

That's the thing the trailers just can't prepare you for. We're used to the glitz and glamor of early Hollywood. That's how they have to advertise this movie. But Babylon is about the drugs, sex, and debauchery. I don't want to scare people away from the movie, but within 15 minutes of the movie, there's a woman peeing on a man. This movie is in love with those early days of Hollywood, but part of what it loves is the absolute anarchy of it. These early sequences - the raucous party, the wild day of film production the next day - they are when Chazelle is at his best as a director. They are a feast for the senses. He mixes long, chaotic, complex shots with fast and abrupt cuts. It's a blast.

 

Of course, this is a movie about the rise and fall. Talkies come and abruptly change what audiences want. The skillset of silent stars doesn't always translate. Hollywood's control switches from the renegades to the businessmen and society types. Our characters find it harder and harder to find a place for themselves in the new world order. The things they loved about the industry move to increasingly less savory places and the concessions they have to make to stay in the industry becoming increasingly dehumanizing. It's all a lot less fun.

 

I'll always remember the first time I watched Boogie Nights in college. Toward the end of the movie, right around when Dirk Diggler is getting beat up or Rollergirl is kicking a guy's face in, one of my friends stopped and dejectedly cried "where did the porn go?" It was a funny moment but really highlighted something about that kind of movie (which Babylon shares a ton of DNA with). No matter how well done and well-crafted the latter part of the fall is, the audience of going to miss the rise. Babylon is at its best in the early mayhem. Later, it slows down. It's still tense, but it's a hangover. My senses were assaulted for 2 hours and now I still have 80 minutes of disillusionment and disappointment. So, while I do think the movie needed to be as long as it was, I don't think it managed the momentum shift as gracefully as I would've liked.

 

Chazelle has a skill with endings. Whiplash is one of my favorite endings of all time. La La Land's ending patched a lot of holes in the movie before it and sends the audience out on a high note. Even the ending for the more reserved First Man is a needed release. The end of Babylon feels a little too forced. I love that it acknowledges what the audience has been thinking the whole time by pointing out the similarities to Singin' in the Rain. The final moment, when Manny smiles is perfect. I'm less enthused about the montage of the history and future of film. It's quite literally yelling the point of the movie at me. I appreciate the desire to want to end on a big moment. This is maybe too big though. I'm happy to sit with this for a while though. I could also see it growing on me.

 

I love that someone let Damien Chazelle make Babylon. It is big and ambitious in a way most movies aren't. The performances are all great. Pitt is dusting off a lot of his Once Upon a Time in Hollywood character. Calva is a nice discovery, although his is the least flashy role. I don't think Robbie has ever oozed with stardom more. She's a force. It's an odd performance to rate though. Not every actress can do what she's doing. It requires a star charisma that someone either has or they don't. I think that's part of why she's being left out of awards discussion. You need a Margot Robbie to play this role. So, when she does play the role, it feels almost too obvious to appreciate. I think I'm just short of loving this movie. It's so much movie that I left it drained and beat up. I'm still untangling how much of that was an intentional effect of the filmmaking and how much was an accident of inconsistency by the end.

 

Side Rant: I thought of this after finishing this Reaction and couldn't find the right place to fit it in. One of my favorite things about the movie is that it's not making a judgment about eras being better or worse. The early part of the movie still has a woman OD-ing at the party and an extra getting killed on the film set. Very bad things. It's not really about the industry changing for the better or worse overall though. It's about how the changes affect the generation of characters this film follows.  Pitt, Robbie, and to an extent Calva were built for a specific world and time. Some people are built to change and adapt. Some aren't. The bad things that do happen early on are the bad things these characters signed up for. In many ways, the things the industry turns into aren't objectively as bad, but to these characters they are. It's even fascinating how Pitt's character embraces the shift to talkies, not realizing that he couldn't survive the change.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend