Babylon | Film Review

This recently came out on the Sky Premiere channel and to be honest I watched it on a complete whim. I knew nothing about it, and I barely paid attention to it when it originally came out. But after looking it up and seeing who the director was (Damien Chazelle, director of La La Land amongst other great movies) I was interested in seeing it.

In the 1920s, a group of Hollywood artists face extreme ups and downs as the industry transitions from silent pictures to sound films.

This film was okay. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either.

The first thing I noticed was that you can completely tell it's directed by Chazelle. It has a very similar 'old Hollywood' feel to La La Land.

This story has a very specific tone that you'll either like or you won't. I personally didn't like it, and it took me a long time to get used to it. Because of that, I wasn't interested in anything that happened for at least the first 45 minutes. I actually turned it off at 20 minutes in and put something else on, before ultimately deciding to go back to it.

The film looks at Hollywood from a really interesting angle, showing the ups and downs, but also the ecstasy and desperation. All of these feelings, and the things that lead to them, are portrayed really well.

Part of this great portrayal is down to the performances. The film stars Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo and Li Jun Li amongst an ensemble cast, and everyone was amazing in their respective roles.

I found it really interesting to see the transition from silent films to sound films from the actors/filmmakers' point of view. Seeing the things that had to be considered and how different things had to become was really intriguing and eye-opening.

It's really easy to see how the characters become disillusioned with this world, and this is really reflected in how good the writing is.

My main feeling about this film is that it didn't need to be 3 hours long. A lot of scenes could have been taken out or cut down, and so much of it felt elongated for no reason. I actually think it would have benefitted the plot to cut things down.

I found myself getting bored during the last hour. I was really interested in how it would end, but I was fast-forwarding bits of scenes and things that looked unimportant just so I could get to the end.

Overall, the film was fine. There were things I didn't like, a few things I did like, but I mostly felt kind of neutral about everything that happened.

5/10