Damien Chazelle admitted to a crowd of fans gathered for an In Conversation panel at the Toronto International Film Festival that his upcoming film Babylon was going to be “big, boisterous, and loud.” According to the director, he needed something totally opposite from the internal, brooding quiet of his moon-mission drama First Man. And from the looks of the first trailer for Babylon that Paramount just dropped, that’s exactly what the Whiplash filmmaker aims to deliver once this opulent party drama hits theaters in December.
When a trailer opens with a Hollywood starlet (played by an unhinged Margot Robbie) snorting up the Paramount logo as if it were a mountain of cocaine, then ranting passionately about all of the things that she would do if she were rich, you just know that we are going to be in for something unique and special. Here’s everything we know about Babylon, which takes audiences back to Los Angeles in the 1920s, at a time when Southern California’s desert paradise was figuring out how to become a big city. And at the same time, the film industry was starting to find its way, leading to the gluttonous behavior of celebrities, directors, singers, dancers, musicians… in Old Hollywood, anything goes (and everything went).
Into this manipulatable reality steps Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), a former actor who climbed the ranks to some position of power, even if that isn’t made totally clear in the Babylon trailer. Producer? Studio head? Either way, the man is at the center of the madness that is happening in Hollywood at the time. Margot Robbie’s character may want to live in a world where the party never stops, but sooner or later that lifestyle is going to catch up to you, and we have seen in his previous movies how Damien Chazelle embraces the melancholic sadness that can be found when one sacrifices to chase his or her dream.
Back when Damien Chazelle appeared on ReelBlend, he discussed some of his writing process for Babylon, and how the movie would be in direct contrast to First Man. But as he elaborated in the In Conversation panel at TIFF 2022, that has been his method since the beginning. Following the mean-spirited tone of Whiplash, he lost himself in the hopeful dreamscape of La La Land. After reinventing musicals (and almost winning a Best Picture Oscar), Chazelle needed to pivot to the quiet, barren landscapes of the moon.
He’s back in celebratory mode with Babylon, which stars Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Tobey Maguire, Samara Weaving, Spike Jonze, Flea, Eric Roberts, PJ Byrne, newcomer Diego Calva, and the always spectacular Jean Smart. The movie will be in theaters beginning December 25.
More from the Toronto International Film Festival
Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans is a touching, messy masterpiece.
Rian Johnson made a superior Knives Out sequel with the winning Glass Onion.
And Harry Styles continues to grow as an actor in My Policeman.
