paw post movie insider: babylon review

From the director of Whiplash and La La Land comes another film that can be added right alongside these masterpieces. With the cinematography, casting, and amazing soundtrack, Babylon deserves an Oscar. Following the success and downfall of different dreamers involved in the Hollywood industry during the 1920s, the film lives up to its 3 hour runtime. I never got bored once, for every scene had a different story. Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, and Diego Calva played the main roles of dreamers in the movie, which in my opinion was perfect casting. Robbie’s character follows her rise and downfall of her acting in the industry after becoming a hard addict, Pitt’s character follows his realization that he is nothing without his acting, and Calva’s character shares his path to becoming a director. But the most impressive part about this movie was although each character follows a different path in the industry, it shares an insightful story that is so realistic to people involved in Hollywood. Whether you’re successful at first, this industry will end up dragging you down which is what director Damien Chazelle wanted to get across. Some highlight scenes for me included Robbie’s character having to retake a scene 8 times resulting in an exhausted crew and even a dead cameraman, Robbie’s character yet again causing mayhem as she gets bit by a rattlesnake, and of course the ending scene. The last scene follows Calva’s character who wanted to become a director but gave up after the ropes he had to go through. As his character sits in a movie theater by himself at the end of the movie, different influential films are quickly showcased which makes him cry as his love for film returns. That scene is so beautiful and so relatable that it’s just a perfect ending to such a beautiful story we the audience followed for 3 hours. My only complaint is the amount of explicit content shown throughout, but to be fair it’s rated R for a reason. 

3.5/5 stars