Film Review: BABYLON (2022): Damien Chazelle’s Film is a Wild Good Time Though it Falls Short of Greatness

Babylon Review

Babylon (2022) Film Review, a movie written and directed by Damien Chazelle and starring Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Flea, Olivia Wilde, Tobey Maguire, Samara Weaving, J.C. Currais, Jimmy Ortega, Marcos A. Ferraez, Shane Powers, Phoebe Tonkin, Troy Metcalf, Jovan Adepo, Hansford Prince, Telvin Griffin, Cutty Cuthbert, Albert Hammond Jr. and Bregje Heinen.

Damien Chazelle is a genius. There’s no denying that his latest film, Babylon, is a complex work of great significance to the world of cinema as it documents the move from silent films to talkies in the 1920’s and beyond. Roger Ebert once stated a really good film has three great scenes and no bad scenes. If that theory was to hold true for Babylon, and it definitely does, why did so much of the movie feel like it was steering off track at the end? There are no bad sequences in the film at all. However, there just could have been more great scenes to help make the film a masterpiece. Chazelle is capable of creating wild situations and memorable characters but in terms of the way it all comes together at the end, it just felt that something was missing.

The movie opens with a pièce de résistance: a Hollywood party that would give the party in the opening scenes of Eyes Wide Shut a run for its money. However, there’s a lot more going on than just that party. An elephant poops with a vengeance, a man gets urinated on and a would-be star from New Jersey named Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie in a role that will be remembered for years to come) comes onto the scene with aplomb. It’s a whole half hour before the film’s title even pops up. This is one wild and crazy ride so fasten your seat belts.

Brad Pitt is Jack Conrad, a handsome movie star who goes through wives quickly. Jack has the potential to be one of the biggest actors of all-time. And for a while, Jack does pretty good for himself and the film documents his rise and fall as talkies ultimately lead to the revelation that the movie business is a whole new world for all those involved. Jean Smart, in a fine turn, serves as journalist Elinor St. John, a character who plays a pivotal role in the proceedings and has some interesting takes on the world of stardom. Smart makes a comeback here portraying St. John in such a way that she becomes fascinating for the audience to watch.

An immigrant named Manny Torres (Diego Calva) is who the audience is supposed to relate to. He’s enlisted to get rid of a dead body early on but becomes a pivotal part of the action as the film takes us through his experiences where he ultimately is the one who best survives the turmoil that the key characters in the film face. Calva is fine here in a turn that could be deemed a stepping stone to future roles. Calva makes his presence known in a picture where there are plenty of opportunities for him to get lost in the shuffle.

More about those three great scenes, though. Besides the one which is “great” because it features Nellie vomiting a huge load, there are two sequences that could go down as historically amazing scenes. While Nellie throwing up plays absolutely hilariously and unexpectedly, the focus on the other two phenomenal scenes in the movie is key to understanding why Babylon works so well as a movie. On the set of a film, Nellie must come into the frame of the shot, make herself a compelling presence and, that’s right, speak. However, as this is happening, people keep interrupting or messing up in terms of keeping the set silent. So, there are multiple takes of the shot which leads to wickedly funny and wonderful revelations which I certainly won’t reveal here. The sharp response dialogue here is certainly on point.

The single best scene of the movie is when Nellie’s dad (Eric Roberts) is going to fight a snake. Not just any old snake but a vicious one. He falls down and fails. Nellie, brave, fearless and wild, takes over and the result is so tremendously over-the-top, it could just go down in cinematic history as one of the craziest scenes ever filmed which could position the film as a contender to become a classic for fans of bizarre situations that play amazingly well. This scene is still replaying in my head.

However, being bizarre does not make a film great even if that bizarre scene is, indeed, great. You want more things in the film that are bizarre? Take Tobey Maguire’s character, a mafia kingpin named James McKay. Manny and James’ interaction here is the kind you need to see just to understand exactly what I’m talking about. It’s great to see Maguire doing something that isn’t Spider-Man these days and his appearance makes for a high point in the picture despite the scene’s offbeat nature which makes it just plain weird. But, surprisingly it’s not bad.

Pitt is an actor who audiences have been watching for years. He exudes coolness even when he’s just being himself. Jack feels improvised at times in Babylon which makes me wonder if Pitt helped create the character himself alongside what was written in the script. If Pitt didn’t improvise, he deserves credit for being so natural and his character’s fate will certainly keep the audience captivated throughout.

This is Margot Robbie’s movie from beginning to end, though. She just goes for broke here as the actress who isn’t really an actress but is going to become a movie star because well…she just is. Robbie makes this character in the film her own and she never feels like she’s steering the character into someone comfortable for the audience to know. Nellie is not very relatable but she’s energetic and doesn’t let go of her passions in life ultimately causing her some unneeded distress in her life.

Some of Babylon misses the mark such as its use of the film, Singin’ in the Rain, and a montage of other mainstream films which appears at the conclusion. Max Minghella, as Irving Thalberg, should have been given more screen time especially considering the film’s three hour length. There are other performers here too whose roles feel like they were snipped out but let’s chalk that up to keeping the movie at a running time that makes sense.

It’s almost as if Chazelle wanted to cram everything into one movie just in case he never made another film again. While Babylon may have three or four stories packed into the film, it’s a hugely successful effort because of Chazelle’s brave direction. Like Robbie, Chazelle goes for broke. He may have been asked to trim some of his unsettling scenes out of the picture to make it more accessible to mainstream audiences. If he wasn’t, though, that’s a major step forward for Hollywood. Chazelle could probably do anything he wants to now and Babylon was the perfect choice for him even if it ultimately won’t win him another Best Director Oscar. It’s what he does next that interests me the most.

Rating: 8/10

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