BABYLON

The nearer Babylon approaches the three-hour mark, the more the realisation hits that you could cut just about any scene from the picture and it would have next to no effect on either the plot or the characters.

Less is more, the saying goes, but in Babylon director Damien Chazelle throws that caution in the wind, from its indulgent opening act bacchanal to the mind-boggingly incoherent assault on the senses of the final scenes.

Chazelle doesn’t just go big in his look at twenties Hollywood, he goes huge, with obnoxiously low-brow humour, non-stop music on the soundtrack and no less than halve a dozen main story arcs, none of which you ultimately care significantly about because the characters are painted in such broad and often clichéd strokes.

Admittedly, some sequences are well-developed and show a flair that easily swept along the audience I saw the movie with. But one wonders: to what end? Because the nearer Babylon approaches the three-hour mark, the more the realisation hits that you could cut just about any scene from the picture and it would have next to no effect on either the plot or the characters.

Never is this more apparent than in the third act, which ends Babylon on a lot of sound and fury, but doesn’t make you any wiser about the point the film wants to make.

release: 2022

director: Damien Chazelle

starring: Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Diego Calva, Tobey Maguire