Indulgence is the key takeaway from the trailer from Chazelle’s film. Sporting a reputable ensemble cast of A-list actors such as Brad Pitt (Fight Club, Tree of Life, Se7en), Margot Robbie (I, Tonya, The Suicide Squad, Amsterdam) and Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man, The Great Gatsby, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas), Babylon sports an equally large budget, delivered in the film’s impressive production design. This is a far cry from the earlier work of Chazelle; the grounded scale of Whiplash (2014) for example. However, as Chazelle’s repertoire has grown over the short span of his career, he has directed his attention towards more the cinematically ambitious features of La La Land (2016) or First Man (2018). Considering this, Babylon seems like the logical cinematic step forward.
In the case of Babylon, its apparent from the trailer that it’s large scale and overly stylized presentation evokes that of Luhrmann’s adaptation, The Great Gatsby (2013), albeit an R-rated exploration into the excesses of American 1920s consumerism. With this in consideration, Chazelle may run the risk of overloading Babylon into an excessively bloated film, one that prioritizes its style over substance.
That being said, its difficult not to see the appeal of Babylon; a star-studded amalgamation of The Great Gatsby and Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, (1984) making it an intriguingly ambitious upcoming feature.