Is anything really shocking anymore? Writer-director Damien Chazelle must hope he's providing the answer to that question with his latest movie, the proudly bloated Babylon. Chazelle, who won an Oscar for his 2016 La La Land, here revisits the world of Hollywood hopes and dreams and finds it a much darker place. Where the earlier film had a gentle, bittersweet spirit, Babylon has a man eating a rat, a man being pooped on by an elephant, a man being peed on at a party, and more projectile vomiting than some viewers might wish to witness. But who among us, in an age of Nazi fanboys and Lars von Trier movies, could summon the energy to be shocked by such things? No, the most objectionable aspect of Chazelle's new movie is the fact that it's an exhausting three hours long. Decadence shouldn't be such a chore to sit through.
The story is set in Hollywood in 1926, a time when silent films were gushing out the money to fuel an endless industry kegger that no one thought would ever run dry. But as the picture begins, the good times are about to be disrupted by the advent of synchronized sound, which will enable the movies to speak and even sing. (Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer was released in 1927.) This game-changing innovation is the fulcrum of Chazelle's story, and it might have been even more compelling if presented in a less rowdy form. The picture is confused in both its intentions and its tone, and it's wildly overpopulated with characters, some of whom fear the changes on the way for their business and some of whom are eager to embrace them. Our main companions for most of the movie are Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), a veteran leading man at the teetering peak of his fame; Manny Torres (Diego Calva), an ambitious Mexican kid intent on breaking into the industry; and aspiring starlet Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), who is gifted with a rare ability to cry on cue and is prepared to do anything at all to demonstrate it on the big screen.
