Margot Robbie has spoken about her confusion at the negative response to Damien Chazelle’s love letter to Hollywood Babylon, and I have to say she’s totally right. Not only was this chaotic chronicle of the rise and fall of celebrities during the transition from the silent to sound eras an impressive piece of cinema, but it was actually a masterpiece.

Chazelle’s career has been an interesting one to follow, as he blew audiences away with his breakout success, Whiplash, before creating one of the greatest movie musicals of the modern era with La La Land. Despite these impressive credentials, critics were not kind to Babylon, and it was widely considered a major misstep and a vanity project from Chazelle.

Babylon Flopped & Disappointed Critics Upon Release

This Big Budget Black Comedy Was Incredibly Divisive

On paper, Babylon looked like a surefire hit, as it was a pᴀssion project written and directed by Damien Chazelle that included some of the biggest stars around among its cast, such as Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt. While expectations were sky-high for this release, the response was incredibly polarizing.

As a bombastic, over-the-top piece of cinematic spectacle, Babylon didn’t feature the same kind of straightforward narrative that audiences connected with in Whiplash and La La Land. Instead, Chazelle sought to embrace the glitz and glamour of classic Hollywood and present his film in a much more abstract manner than audiences were used to.

The results were hugely divisive, and critics called Babylon overlong and meandering. Babylon wasn’t trying to be coherent in the way Chazelle’s previous work was, and it seems the disconnect between critics’ expectations of his output and the actual results caused reviewers to vehemently reject the film without properly paying attention to its merits and what it was trying to accomplish.

Babylon Is A Love Letter To Cinema

Chazelle Put His All Into Babylon’s Production

The truth was that Babylon was a love letter to cinema, and its extravagant aesthetic was part of what made it so brilliant to begin with. Chazelle had already proved himself more than capable of making a straightforward mainstream hit, and the success of his previous works afforded him the opportunity to attempt something more ambitious, challenging, and outrageous than what came before.

Babylon was a movie made for cinephiles, and its epic score and era-appropriate trumpets and saxophones captured the changing world of Hollywood in the 20s and 30s perfectly. As a thought-provoking and technically impressive piece of filmmaking, anyone with knowledge of how the complexities of making a movie work will understand how much went into getting Babylon made.

The Performances In Babylon Are Fantastic

Margot Robbie And Brad Pitt Share The Screen In Babylon

With major stars like Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt at the forefront of the film, Babylon was also elevated by its outstanding ensemble cast. Featuring notable names like Tobey Maguire, Olivia Wilde, Spike Jonze, and Diego Calva among its cast, the way Chazelle took the celebrities of the modern era and transported them back into classic Hollywood was a sight to behold.

Robbie herself spoke about her shock at the negative response to Babylon in an interview with Ben Mankiewicz for the Talking Pictures podcast. While Robbie said, “I know I am biased because I am very close to the project, and I obviously believe in it,” she added, “I still can’t figure out why people hated it.”

Robbie’s captivating portrayal of the brash, self-proclaimed star Nellie LaRoy was a standout performance, and there’s a lot of merit to her ᴀssertion that “I wonder if in 20 years people are going to be like, ‘Wait, Babylon didn’t do well at the time?” She stated she believes it will be like The Shawshank Redemption and gain its acclaim later.

Babylon Is A Technical Marvel

The Cinematography and Score Of Babylon Were Top-Tier

While some critics may have found Babylon disorienting from a narrative point of view, as it embraced artistry over straightforward storytelling, it’s impossible to deny the film’s technical merits. What’s striking about watching Babylon for the first time was just how beautiful the film looks and how the cinematography captured its era perfectly.

Music has always been an integral part of Chazelle’s output, and the score for Babylon stands alongside La La Land as one of the best in all of 21st-century cinema. This was composed by Chazelle’s frequent collaborator Justin Hurwitz, and he rightfully earned the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and an Academy Award nomination for this work.

People Are Starting To Give Babylon Its Proper Due

Even Stephen King Thinks Babylon Is A Masterpiece

Babylon was dismissed by many critics upon release, and it flopped at the box office, only grossing $65 million on an $80 million budget (via Box Office Mojo.) However, the film has already been reappraised by many who have noticed its merits and given it retrospective acclaim.

Plenty of notable names have come forward to speak about how great they thought Babylon was, and Margot Robbie isn’t the only one who thinks it’s an underappreciated masterpiece. Author Stephen King praised Babylon and called it “utterly brilliant—extravagant, over the top, hilarious, thought-provoking,” singling it out as a movie that “reviews badly and is acclaimed as a classic in 20 years.”

Every year, the conversation around Babylon shifts further away from its negative reception towards its reappraisal as a modern masterpiece. It’s like critics expected one thing from Chazelle and got something entirely different, but he stayed true to his artistic vision, and it’s taken time for audiences, critics, and the industry at large to catch up to what he was doing.

Sources: Talking Pictures, Box Office Mojo