Movie Review: Babel

Babel

In Brief: What's Good

• The movie's highlighting of foreign cultures is interesting.


• There are some good performances, especially from Brad Pitt and Adriana Barraza.

In Brief: What's Bad

• The movie is way too long. With tighter storytelling and better editing the movie could have been -- and *should* have been -- at least a half hour shorter.


• There are a few moments of overt sexual content in the movie. There is a scene of a young Moroccan boy pleasuring himself that does not help develop the character or add anything to the story. Another scene where a teenage Japanese girl flashes her private area to some nearby guys is more graphic than is actually necessary.

Summary:

C	Story
B	Acting
C	Directing
C+	Visuals

Babel tells four separate stories: (1) An American couple (Brad Pitt & Cate Blanchett) struggle to revive their failing marriage by vacationing together in Morraco where the wife suffers a critical injury far away from proper medical care; (2) A local Moroccan family try to cope with a tragic mistake committed by the youngest son; (3) Faced with a scheduling conflict on the day of her son's wedding in Mexico, a Latino nanny for a caucasian American family decides to bring the two kids under her care with her across the border just for the day; (4) A deaf-mute, Japanese teenager who recently lost her mother to suicide suffers from depression and peer pressure while police attempt to find and ask questions of her single, well-intentioned father.

The movie has good performances, interesting scenary, and a few nice character moments. However, it also tries to force messages about humanity upon you. Those messages sometimes come off as convoluted and depressing. I think this movie is ambitious in trying to make a statement about differing cultures and how everyone in the world is connected, but ultimately, it fails to deliver that statement in a powerful, moving way.

Some of the hype about this movie is how it stitches together seemingly unrelated subplots into a single story involving characters stretched over three distinct cultures. Frankly, I think that aspect of the movie is a bit over-rated. The Japanese girl's subplot is just barely connected to the rest of the story. I think if the screenwriter and director wanted to do a story about a deaf Japanese girl, it might have been better for both the character and the audience to make a whole separate movie about such a character instead of tacking her on to this movie. I've seen a few other movies that combined seemingly unrelated subplots in more interesting ways. Two examples are "Two Days in the Valley" and "Playing by Heart."

But, those other examples do not have the multicultural aspects that this movie has. It is somewhat interesting and almost educational to see the stories take place in such different places and to compare Mexican, Muslim, and Japanese cultures to that of America. Very little of the United States is even seen in the movie, and most of what we do see is desert.

However, I believe the broad scope of the movie does not make up for its lack of substance. The director here has tried to take fairly uncomplicated subplots and make them seem deeper and more culturally significant by stretching them out and adding filler. With a more concise screenplay and tighter editing this movie could have been told in 100 minutes or less (instead of the 142 it takes now) and could have been more entertaining.

This movie has gotten multiple Golden Globe, SAG, and Oscar nominations. I would say the only ones it completely deserves have been the three Supporting Actress nominations for Adriana Barraza and the one Supporting Actor nomination for Brad Pitt. Otherwise, I'm a little baffled as to what others see in it.

On the other hand, this movie has only a 69% fresh score at RottenTomatoes.com, compared to 98% for The Queen, 96% for Pan's Labyrinth, 93% for The Departed, and 91% for Children of Men. Even Casino Royale (94%), Charlotte's Web (80%), and Rocky Balboa (77%) scored higher than Babel. So, don't just take my word for it. Babel is one choice the award shows got plain wrong.

Oscar Awards

• Win - Best Original Score


• Nomination - Best Picture


• Nomination - Best Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu


• Nomination - Best Supporting Actress: Adriana Barraza


• Nomination - Best Supporting Actress: Rinko Kikuchi


• Nomination - Best Original Screenplay: Guillermo Arriaga


• Nomination - Best Editing

Screen Actors Guild Awards

• Nomination - Best Motion Picture Cast


• Nomination - Best Supporting Actress: Adriana Barraza


• Nomination - Best Supporting Actress: Rinko Kikuchi

Golden Globe Awards

• Win - Best Drama Motion Picture


• Nomination - Best Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu


• Nomination - Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt


• Nomination - Best Supporting Actress: Adriana Barraza


• Nomination - Best Supporting Actress: Rinko Kikuchi


• Nomination - Best Screenplay: Guillermo Arriaga


• Nomination - Best Original Score

Casting Observation

Do you feel like every movie that ever needs a young girl ends up casting Dakota Fanning for the role? For the young girl under the care of the Mexican nanny in Babel, they actually did not cast Dakota Fanning. *However*, they did cast Dakota's younger sister, Elle Fanning.