‘Babylon’ – How to Make a Lot of Noise and Say Absolutely Nothing
Babylon is a movie that seeks to answer the question: what if the most annoying kid in your first-year film studies class wrote fanfic about the silent film era while on cocaine?
The film from director Damien Chazelle, stars Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, and Jean Smart and features appearances from a whole slew of celebrities including Tobey Maguire, Samara Weaving, and Flea.
The main story is about ingenue Nellie LaRoy (Robbie), a brash, wild, aspiring starlet who manic-pixie-dream-girls her way to Hollywood, where she becomes a sensation. At the same time, silent star Jack Conrad (Pitt) is watching the landscape in the industry change with the new addition of sound and realizing that his formerly illustrious career might be reaching its end. Between all this, we have Manny Torres, an immigrant in search of his American Dream in the movie business who falls for Nellie and has to contend with Hollywood’s craziness. If this all sounds terribly trite and cliche, that’s because it is.
I’ve never seen a movie that shouted so loudly with absolutely nothing new to say.
Rich, coked-up, Hollywood excess has never been explored on screen before, right? Make sure to throw in some wild parties and orgies that will eventually lead to a character’s downfall. What fresh, new stuff! Definitely include Margot Robbie flipping her hair and dancing because she’s the crazy girl everyone wants. How original! How do stars deal with fading fame as the industry shifts? Nobody’s ever talked about that before! Maybe we can even shoehorn in some rushed, horribly-executed commentary about how difficult it was for people of color and LGBTQ celebrities back then. We’re really changing the game now!
Literally nothing in this movie breaks new ground except for maybe the idea of trying to mashup The Great Gatsby, The Wolf of Wall Street, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Boogie Nights, and Freddy Got Fingered. I guess I’ve never seen someone try to make a half-assed comment about blackface in the same movie with a lowbrow gross-out elephant diarrhea scene, so there’s that.
Judging by the early reactions, this film seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it kind of movie. Fair enough. I have friends who really enjoyed it, and good for them. I, on the other hand, did not. At one point, I worried about developing some kind of cramp from how hard I was constantly rolling my eyes. As Mike Stoklasa from Red Letter Media once said, “I judge movies on whether or not I’m miserable,” and this one was a genuinely excruciating cinema experience for me.
When the credits mercifully rolled after 188 minutes of loud, obnoxious, vapid storytelling, I felt like I had been released from movie jail. It was good to see the sky again, to sit in a quiet car, to go home, put on an S. S. Rajamouli movie, and try to remember that movies can be enjoyable, magical, meaningful, and fun after the soulless trash I’d just witnessed.
