2022 - BABYLON, a strange messy tribute to Hollywood

Damien Chazelle is the writer/director of Babylon.  Chazelle had previously made the film La La Land, the revisionist musical drama that featured leads who couldn't sing or dance.  Babylon appears to be Chazelle's tribute to Hollywood's silent film phase and it's transition to sound in the late 1920's and early 30's.  Like audiences would be interested in that.  The film chiefly follows a few story lines. 

Margot Robbie is a woman who believes she is destined to become a major Hollywood star, Brad Pitt is the fading Hollywood leading man caught in the transition to sound.  Diego Calva plays a Hispanic who improbably rises to the top of the studio hierarchy as an executive.  The film is well cast and the performances are at a high caliber.  Robbie in particular really goes for it with an all out diva performance.  

 

Babylon is a frustrating film. the first 30 to 40 minutes of it are quite good with lots of black humor particularly in an extended party scene and the filming of a Hollywood costume epic.  It seems that everything story wise starts to go wrong around the one hour running time of the film as the story transitions into drama and about forty minutes later completely descends into melodrama.  Frankly the script ends up a complete disaster.

Damien Chazelle is a talented filmmaker who clearly has a personal vision, however he will need to tame his rather excessive and overblown style.  He particularly needs to get his screenwriting under control if he wants to continue with a career in the film business.  For all of it's ambitions Babylon ends up a major disappointment.

The running time is a ridiculous 189 minutes.