Babylon (2022) Dir: Damien Chazelle

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Depending on who you talk to, Damien Chazelle's Hollywood epic is either a masterpiece or a mess. It infamously flopped at the box office, for a number of reasons, be it its three-hour runtime, its inconsistent reviews, or even simply that people just didn't care about seeing a story set in old Hollywood. Either way, I had no clue whether I'd love it or hate it, but the time had finally come to find out.

Where to begin? It's safe to say that the film was a lot to take in. The three hour runtime was a challenge enough in itself, and certainly a cause for trepidation before I watched it. The soundtrack helped provide some rhythm to the film, which in turn alleviated some of the pacing issues, due to the story's inconsistency.

I have to talk about some of the cinematography, because it was just superb. The set design was undeniably impressive, and had a big hand in creating some absolutely gorgeous shots. The same praise can be applied to the lighting and colour mixing. It was extremely obvious that this was made by the same director as 'La La Land'.

The film was an epic ode to the early days of Hollywood, and, as such, was very chaotic. However, this chaos proved very messy, and not always in the way I think it was trying to be. Some of the scenes were done purely for the sake of shock factor, and just came across as crass. To that end, the film was, in many ways, extremely gratuitous.

I understand that gratuitous was kind of the point, but there's a point where gratuitous just becomes gratuitous for gratuity's sake. The film fetishised women a lot, and not just in a "that's Hollywood" way. I was expecting some nudity, but the sheer volume of it all was too much, even for the purpose it was supposed to serve.

What this film did incredibly well was to illustrate the intense highs and lows of fame; the drug that was, and arguably still is, Hollywood. The story was ridiculous, verging on nonsensical at times, but it had a tremendously powerful emotional undercurrent to it. I also liked the way the fill depicted filmmaking and all its glory and frustrations; the scene on the studio set was particularly good.

The acting wasn't the problem. On the contrary, I thought some of the performances were incredibly high quality and memorable. I wasn't expecting Diego Calva's character to be the main protagonist, but I'm very glad he was, because he was easily the most likable of the lot. Calva gave his character such am endearing and genuine feel, which offset some of the other personalities in the film just wonderfully.

Margot Robbie's performance was absolutely sensational, in fairness. She was this film's lifeblood. Every time that she appeared on the screen, she was electrifying. Everything she did felt natural for her character - it was truly an effortless looking performance. This has to go amongst the very best displays of Robbie's already illustrious acting career.

Brad Pitt playing a self-absorbed and selfish man does make a lot of sense, to be fair, and, for what it's worth, he does it very well. His ability to seem so arrogant with such ease is very impressive, though I also thought he did a good job of showing the man under the bravado, particularly in the second half of the film.

I wanted to see a lot more of Jovan Adepo, but, unfortunately, he felt incredibly underutilised. His acting was tremendous, but he just didn't get enough opportunities to show that. There were a number of others who had very limited screentime, but left an indelible mark on the film nonetheless; Jean Smart, 'Flea', Li Jun Li, Samara Weaving, Tobey Maguire, Olivia Wilde, Eric Roberts, Rory Scovel, and P.J. Byrne.

Overall, this was a wild, and I really do mean wild, odyssey of the early days of Hollywood. It was aesthetically brilliant but greatly lacking in consistency, especially with its disjointed narrative. Elements of this film were undeniably phenomenal, but there was so much messiness that it affected my enjoyment greatly. This was so close to being an all-timer, but its own desire for grandeur got in its way.