Babylon

A tale of ambition and excess, Babylon traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence in Hollywood. With their lives converging around the fateful moment when the movie business went from silent to sound, the story centers on three figures – aging star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), starlet Nelie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), and a hired hand named Manny Torres (Diego Calva).

It’s delicious that a film built on a metaphor about babbling chaos digs into the ironies of what we hear and say. Beginning in a sprawling and chaotic movie set during the silent era, it shows us a time when you could film a western, a biblical epic, and a romantic comedy in the same studio all at once because no sound was being recorded. But when the sound era arrives, sets go deadly (and hilariously) quiet – a tense and brilliant contrast. And the contrasts don’t stop there. This is a movie about how Hollywood casts a spell on all of us while also churning through talented performers as if they’re replaceable, forcing technological changes on the entire industry, and playing to the shifting tastes of the country. Much of the churn is about money and profit. But as viewers, we also mourn the tragedies that litter Hollywood histories, and worshipfully buy into the dream, the spell, and the mystery of it all. Entrancing, moving, frustrating, and transporting, Babylon’s sprawl embodies what Hollywood is all about from beginning to end.

(US / 2022 / Directed by Damien Chazelle)
R / 3 hrs 9 mins.