- to old Hollywood, that is. It's a grand spectacle, to be sure, and much of it works admirably. The acting, notably from Robbie and Pitt, is spotless, and there are some spectacular setups, such as the party which opens the film and the multiple movie sets-scene from the silent era. It's a good but often-told tale about Hollywood as a heartless dream factory and the people whose lives are broken in the process. We've heard that song before, and still, Pitt and Robbie do a pretty good job of making it seem fresh. Also, there's a nice little twist in the fact that this time, it's not really Hollywood that breaks them but themselves. Pitt is an alcoholic relying too much on past successes to think he has to make an effort, and Robbie was warped by her parents and friends already before she came, so her fate is simply a fulfilment that has little to do with the movie industry.
So far so good (except it is VERY far since the movie clocks in at 3 hours!). But my biggest problem with "Babylon" is that it does not seem to know which leg to stand on. Much of the editing wants to be art, the story wants to be soap, and "Babylon" also wants to be PC by dropping in a black musician (whose story is neither sufficiently fleshed-out nor satisfactorily concluded) together with an amalgam of Marlene Dietrich (in white tie and tails, and the lesbian kiss from "Morocco") and Anna May Wong, the Chinese actress who couldn't land leading roles in Hollywood. The first act steals shamelessly from "Singin' in the Rain" (to which it eventually pays a lengthy homage) in the transition from silent to talkies.
The third-act downfall of our young main characters, Nellie and Manny, introduces a totally new plotline. The film's attempt to tie the two together by Tobey Maguire's character is not altogether successful, because although we've heard stories about Sinatra's and Lana Turner's mob associations, we doubt that Hollywood and the mob were intrinsically linked.
And then the ending - oh no, no! We skip more than two decades to find Manny revisiting Hollywood in 1952. He has escaped tragedy by leaving Hollywood for a happy humdrum life. He has also escaped ageing one bit in two decades, apart from a slightly receding hairline, but let that be. The awful thing is he goes to see "Singin' in the Rain" and this is when his sentimental journey becomes downright maudlin as he is weeping like a whipped nun, touched by the development of an industry he was once part of. This is where the film once again wants to be art: it rolls us through the entire film history in a collage including Méliès, Lumière, Dreyer, Griffith, Bunuel, "Wizard of Oz", "Ben Hur", "2001" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark", ending in a lot of floating colours from something I failed to identify.
Apart from the fact that skipping many years rarely works in films, the excessive emotions of the main character leave the audience rather cold; director and scriptwriter Chazelle has been so touched by his own tribute to old Hollywood that he forgot to give his audience cues to participate - which is strange, because it worked so well in his "La La Land" that I actually cried, and the drama in "Whiplash" had me riveted. It doesn't work here. It reminds me of how Oscar Wilde once reviewed a novel, "As one turns over the pages, the suspense OF THE AUTHOR becomes almost unbearable".
So, quite apart from the fact that obvious ticking of wokeness boxes always annoys me, "Babylon" fails where other recent portraits of/ tributes to Hollywood of bygone eras, such as Coens' "Hail Caesar!" and Tarantino's "Once upon a Time in Hollywood", triumphed.
But "Babylon" certainly has its moments. Jean Smart's heartless reviewer delivers a speech to the has-been movie star which might have been less in-your-face and sententious but is still great. It was nice to see Lukas Haas and Eric Roberts again - and the inimitable Irving Thalberg was played brilliantly by the late Anthony Minghella's son, so the dynasty continues.