Jamie Skinner reviews Babylon, a three-hour Damien Chazelle film:

Cert - 18, Run-time - 3 hours 9 minutes, Director - Damien Chazelle

As the talkies make their way onto the screen the lives of three hopeful Hollywood figures (Diego Calva, Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt) intertwine with different fates for each.

There’s a maximalist style akin to Baz Luhrmann within the outrageous party sequence which opens Damien Chazelle’s Babylon. Yet, thanks to the less-frantic editing it’s easier to absorb into the excess of public and private sex, drugs, booze and dreams. The frame is filled with all sorts of overwhelming images - shouting into the lens the reasons why this film has an 18 rating. The cinematography, costume and production design - alongside Justin Hurwitz’s whirling score - all pushing the expanse of the scene.

It’s here we see the initial crossing of assistant Manny Torres (Diego Calva) and hopeful starlet Nellie LaRoy (a fantastic turn from Margot Robbie - imagine an off-the-chain anarchic Katharine Hepburn). Over the course of the film we see their respective careers rise, having to adapt to both the film industry as a whole and the rise of the talkies. Their rise opposes the struggle to adapt for biggest-star-about Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt). As his pictures dry up so does his money, largely spread across equal amounts of marriages and alcohol.

The lives change in various extended montages and sequences throughout the film. Fast-paced and well cut together by Chazelle and editor Tom Cross there’s a joint sense of chaos to each moment. Enhanced by the score and upfront action and conversation there’s a lot going on visually and audibly within each scene - particularly in the background where there’s plenty to enjoy. What helps is the fact that such points are wound into the foreground, or at least reacted to by the characters so that there’s almost always something happening, or things are wound into one instead of all feeling apart in individual moments.

With everything that happens perhaps the biggest surprise of the film is that it never exhausts you. It intentionally pushes you to the edge with its force yet never brings in a feeling of tiredness. In fact, the only thing that feels like a tangent tonally is a late-in-the-day visit to an underground sex cult with Tobey Maguire. Instead the reason for feeling the run-time is simply down to the fact that it’s too long. You’re still able to engage with it and enjoy what’s there, there’s still a good film unfolding, but the more narrative based elements mean that things feel about 20-30 minutes too long.

Yet, alongside the glamour and excess it’s the characters which keep the audience engaged. There are strong hints of emotion where the camera lingers on certain figures which strike a real chord amongst the humour which runs throughout. All the central performances manage to power things ahead - including understated supporting roles from Jovan Adepo and Li Jun Li - and simply keep you engaged with both the various pursuits that make up the run-time and the chaos that’s on display. Highly cinematic chaos and excess which you can’t help but be absorbed into from the very beginning.

Jamie Skinner - Four stars