At its best, director Damien Chazelle’s latest film, Babylon, is a stellar and seductive Great Gatsby-esque tale of decadent excess and personal destruction – just trade the Hamptons for Hollywood.
Essentially the most enjoyable film, nevertheless, is that it’s one other ode to Tinseltown, and it could bear a striking resemblance to Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and the Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar! Sometimes it’s good, sometimes derivative.
Duration: 189 minutes. Rated (Strong and crude sexual content, graphic nudity, gory violence, drug use and pervasive language). In cinemas from December 23.
Still, there are worse people to spend three hours with than Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie.
“Babylon” begins within the early Nineteen Twenties, before “The Jazz Singer” revolutionized the film industry with the “talkie” in 1927. The story takes place within the carefree Pre-Code era, before the censorship and morality rules that undermine the free play and laissez-faire acceptance of Hollywood.
Exuding the relaxed star power he at all times has, Pitt is the famous but fading silent movie star Jack Conrad, who’s dapper but goofy, wood and a bit boorish. Robbie is Nellie LaRoy, a Recent Jersey rebel with a pointy accent who desires to be in the images. He takes his probability at a raucous showbiz party held on the mansion initially of the film.
Bash is straight out of “Moulin Rouge”, only there are mountains of cocaine, and the elephant on this movie is actually alive.
![](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/PCN_BABYLON_STILLS_742582469.jpg?w=1024)
Chazelle clearly loves filming these intricate, maze-like sequences, stuffed with extras who move in and out of lavishly appointed rooms, dance bawdy, and engage in a wide range of family-unfriendly activities. Much of the film is as wild and dynamic as his opening of the Los Angeles Freeway in “La La Land” (the director’s second ode to Hollywood). As on this musical, Justin Hurwitz’s music is again heavy with drums and brass, and sometimes the rhythm is so pulsating which you could’t hear the actors.
A similarly gripping scene takes place in an unlimited field where silent movies are filmed. Nellie starts dancing on set within the lounge, where she reveals that she will cry on cue. And Jack drags his drunken self into an epic battle in a historical war movie. The mania of shooting multiple movies before sunset captures the Scotch tape and rubber bands, the shortage of HR, the drunken tease of the early days.
![Manny (Diego Calva) and Jack (Brad Pitt) arrive on a desert film set.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/PCN_BABYLON_STILLS_742582235.jpg?w=1024)
Then Manny (Diego Calva), Jack’s companion, catches the producers’ attention as he frantically sets out to search out a alternative camera.
We then watch as Manny, head over heels in love with Nellie, rises through the ranks of the studio system to eventually grow to be a robust producer. Nellie’s star explodes concurrently as a depressed and aging Jack crumbles.
When talkies arrive, Nellie tries her elocution lessons to make them sound proper and dignified (a nod to Singin’ within the Rain, which plays a giant part in Babylon, but additionally Kaufman and Hart’s Once in a Lifetime, including other plays and movies).
![Manny (Diego Calva) falls in love with Nellie (Margot Robbie).](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/PCN_BABYLON_STILLS_742582441.jpg?w=1024)
The movie’s best scene by a mile shows Nellie on the set of her first film with sound, attempting to say lines while walking. The crew just cannot get a superb take a look at the can. Gaffers sneeze, doors slam, Nellie cannot find her mark under the microphone. The profane screams of the assistant director (PJ Byrne) are unbelievably funny. The humor throughout is particularly well written by Chazelle.
Robbie is most addictive and outrageous in Spitfire roles like Nellie. Here she is something like Harley Quinn driven out of sunny California, saying what she wants and acting how she pleases. Supernova.
Calva’s great skill that can not be underestimated is his ability to look from a distance with awe. Manny is our guide through this gluttonous world that teeters on the sting of a cliff and reminds us of moments of pure magic that Hollywood is answerable for.
![Jean Smart plays a Hollywood gossip columnist.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/PCN_BABYLON_STILLS_742582352.jpg?w=1024)
Jean Smart also appears as a Hedda Hopper-like gossip columnist, Elinore St. John. He gives a poignant speech to Jack about how stars come and go but live ceaselessly on celluloid. Still, the role, with its quirky accent that is neither British nor Mid-Atlantic, doesn’t exactly suit her.
Three-quarters of the way in which through “Babylon” is a snag.
Chazelle is so obsessive about portraying Hollywood’s seedy underbelly on this satire that she overreacts when Manny is shoved right into a desert multi-level S&M sex dungeon by the overly terrifying Tobey Maguire, complete with an alligator and side appearances. It is a scene that might have been ripped out of any cheesy season of American Horror Story.
This flash results in a sweet moment at the tip, now in 1952, after we are faced with the role that movies and cinematic innovations have played in our lives. It’s a fantastic idea in an actual ocean of too many ideas. The movie is a superb 40 minutes too long, and the momentum stops constructing for a moment before it finally ends.
Still, when the director’s party rages on, you may wish you had an invitation.