NOTE: This review contains plot spoilers, though all giveaways are presented to save the reader from spending three-plus hours on what amounts to cinematic refuse.
*******
A friend commented recently, "It must be really difficult to write a bad review." I thought about it for a moment. "No, not really," I responded. Of course, writing a less-than-glowing appraisal of anything cinematic can be challenging in that one doesn't want to appear an insufferable know-it-all, to suggest there is nothing in the effort worth seeing, or (worst) to have an ax to grind. The late film critic Pauline Kael regularly pounded salt and other substances in her New Yorker film reviews, sometimes with amusing effect, other times leaving the question of whether she actually watched the film. Kael's disdain for actor Burt Reynolds was so unyielding that she refused to recognize any of his performances, including Deliverance, and her blatant ridicule of first-time director Kevin Costner's Oscar-winning Dances With Wolves, which she dubbed "Plays with the Camera," often left movie fans wondering whether her reviews had any real credibility.
Few movies are so bad that they are a total waste of time, as most contain a combination of what hits the intended mark and what doesn't. The average commercially made movie is mediocre at best, and its value now determined by how often it is downloaded or streamed. Still, reviewing a movie requires the ability to ascertain how and why a movie hits/misses its mark and whether what is left deserves a look.
Sometimes (usually) it's the director's casting choices, script or editing decisions, or an overall interpretation of the subject matter that sink a film. Other times, a good performance can save a pedestrian or so-so script. Sean Penn's touching performance in I Am Sam (2002) earned him as Oscar nomination for Best Actor and is a great example of a marvelous performance that couldn't save an predicatable, contrived story. Conversely, Unbroken (2014), the true story of World War II survival with a brilliant screenplay by the Coen Brothers, succumbed to director Angelina Jolie's tedious telling of what should have been a compelling drama of resilience and redemption. Recently, the talented cast of Cats (2019) couldn't save the usually astute director Tom Hooper's overuse of CGI, leaving T.S. Eliot's diverse collection of feline personalities to wander about with creepy make-up and laughable choreography.
As a movie lover and film historian, I am always hard-pressed to leave the theater before the credits role. I can count on one hand the number of times a film was so bad I couldn't stay until the final scene. My classic example of the worst movie I may have ever seen was Cheech and Chong's Things Are Tough All Over (1982), in particular, a scene in which our favorite stoners wander through the desert high on peyote and mistake dog excrement for beef jerky. I'll let you fill in the rest, but suffice to say I got up and left the theater.... not because of dog poop per se, but because there was nothing funny, artistic, redeeming or even interesting watching C&C bumble through another drug-induced adventure. There was no sense of direction or purpose to the story. It was a jumble of aimless scenarios strung together, though I have no doubt that, at the time, studio execs believed the humor of confusing dog dung with jerky held some appeal for C&C fans.
If I had followed my twenty-something self this week, I would have exited Babylon right after the elephant took an explosive, almost tornadoic dump. Pause for reaction. Unfortunately, this dramatic defecation occurred in the film's first five minutes, after which I turned to my husband and whispered, "It better get better than this." It didn't, but I stayed and grew increasingly disgusted as the movie continued its downward spiral.
I couldn't help but wonder, then, what the fuck Damien Chazelle was thinking when he created the overbearingly underwhelming saga of Hollywood's silent film era called Babylon. Biblical references aside, Chazelle's Babylon has little to do with the religious, artistic or political significance of its ancient predecessor. Instead, it degenerates into a plotless mess of excess and debauchery, some of it completely pointless and much of it glaringly ahistorical.
Granted, Hollywood is notoriously fond of self-congratulatory film making, as everything from All About Eve to The Artist to Argo will attest. Navel gazing is as popular as self-reflective adoration in the movie industry (mirrors are important here), and audiences seem equally eager to immerse themselves in the illusion of the illusion that is called the silver screen. On the surface, Chazelle's Babylon may seem like the final entry in this year's trivumverate of paeans to Hollywood film (Stephen Spieberg's The Fabelman and Sam Mendes's Empire of Light, both autobiographical coming of age stories, being the other two), but a deeper look shows a meandering mess of themes, plots and characters that hardly leaves the film industry looking good, inviting or desirable. If Babylon is the stuff dreams are made of, Chazelle might just be its worst nightmare.
The aforementioned elephant dump is the precursor to an extended sequence about the debauchery of old Hollywood. It's 1926 and the elephant is being taken to a wild Hollywood party held at the mansion of a D.W. Griffith-like studio executive. Chazelle should know that, while orgies might seem sexy in one's head, putting all the excessive bacchanal lust on screen can make for some pretty gross and unappealing voyeurism. I really didn't need to see a young starlet urinate on an obese star as he clumsily tries to climax, or watch a little person use a giant penis as a pogo stick and send the ejaculate into the inebriated crowd. The nudity (mostly women, although there was male full frontal as well) and rampant drug and alcohol-induced revelry goes on for about thirty minutes before Chazelle interrupts his narrative to spell out BABYLON across the screen.
Like we didn't know or figure that out by then. Ugh. The problem, too, is that Chazelle should know that filming an extended orgy can be, well...boring. Did Chazelle - a self-professed student of all things cinema - not remember the debacle that was Stanley Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999)? Kubrick's attempt to show the excesses of sex as salve for a troubled marriage (w/Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, no less), was a master class in how un-sexy sex can be.
By the time the title finally appears, Chazelle has also introduced his cast of star-crossed characters or, more appropriately, a familar collection of doomed cynics and dreamers. There's Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), the handsome, but aging Rudolph Valentino-esque silent film star, Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), the aspiring star (notice, I did not say actress) who is an odd hybrid of "it-girl" Clara Bow and Marilyn Monroe, Elinor St. John (Jean Smart), a Hedda Hopper-like gossip columnist, and Manuel "Manny" Torres (Diego Calva), a film assistant who longs to have a more powerful place in the film industry and who has a curiously unconvincing love for Nellie.
Then there's the other story: the dawn of talkies which signals the end of the silent movie era. Chazelle bookends (sort of) his story with the release of Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer (1927) and concludes with the premiere of Singin' in the Rain (1952 - and which is a story w/in a story about the advent of sound in movies). The problem is, there is no clear connection between the debauchery of the silent era and the impending introduction of sound in film. Chazelle misses opportunity after opportunity to comment on multiple aspects of the evolution of film, but opts instead to focus on the the almost unbelievable antics of Nellie and Manny's determination to win her heart. It's stream of conscious plotting at its worst.
Ditto the lost chances w/film stars. Like Clara Bow's mother, Nellie visits her mom in an asylum. But that's it. It's a throwaway visit that says little and develops into nothing. In a similar way, Jack's re-marriage to a high-strung Hungarian actress is met w/desperate measures from fans a la Valentino: a woman reportedly commits suicide upon the news that Jack is no longer available. No further follow-up. Just a quickly shown news article with a photo of the dead woman. And off-hand references to real-life silent era stars like Fatty Arbuckle and Anna May Wong are all but lost.
By now, you've probably gotten the gist of what happens: Nellie's star rises, but her troubled family background continues to influence her poor choices. Her fate is all but sealed. Jack's star wanes along with silent movies and, ultimately, he shoots himself, despondent over his failing career. Nellie eventually dies, too, by the way. The consistently naive Manny, though, thrives in spite of Nellie's troubles and manages to survive all that Hollywood has been and will be. In a finale montage of all movies (including some 21st century film clips), Chazelle seems to invite us to believe that all the debauchery, disappointment and death have brought us the glory and excitement that is Hollywood.
Really? Is Chazelle patting Hollywood or himself on the back?
Either way, Babylon is not worth investing the three hours and nine minutes (plus 20 minutes of trailers), it requires unless you are 1) a Chazelle aficienado, or 2) an ardent cinephile who wants to see every movie released, even though critics and box office receipts say otherwise.
It's too bad because Pitt, Robbie, Smart and Calva all give it their best, in spite of cliched characters and a chaotic story. It's a shame and waste of talent and Chazelle's undeniable potential as a filmmaker. His breakthrough film,Whiplash (2014) was exhilarating: a tight, precise, cleverly told rhythmic essay on music, competition and determination. Then, a much-praised follow-up, La La Land (2016) won Chazelle an Oscar and a BAFTA for Best Director and placed him on the short-list of writer/directors who understood the power of cinema, respected its past. and saw its future. Innovator. Visionary. Re-imagining film for the 21st century. In the case of La La Land, Chazelle was credited with re-inventing the Hollywood musical by infusing newfound energy into traditional song and dance sequences. His love of Singin' in the Rain was evident, so it's even more confusing why he uses this classic film in a less than effective way in Babylon.
I wish there was a quote, a line, a joke, an image that would underscore the scope of inadequacies that dominate Babylon's utter failure to amuse, educate or entertain. Maybe the elephant's excretory jaunt is sufficient. Can you say "over-the-top"? Let's just call it crap.
Babylon. I'll leave it at that.