I didn't look up any of the reviews before seeing the film. At this point, if Damien Chazelle made it, I'm gonna see it. I only looked up Rotten Tomatoes after I got home. I think I have about a 35% split with the critics.
Damien Chazelle swung for the fences in just about every way with this film. It took about thirty seconds before you're aware that this isn't Lala Land. Within the first ten minutes, you see laborers risking life and limb in order to get an elephant up a mountain as entertainment for a party being held by the 1926 version of Harvey Weinstein -- and that's followed by a rich, short, fat guy at the party who had paid a young woman to urinate on him. Again, that's in the first ten minutes. We meet Manny Tores, one of the laborers who got the elephant up the mountain, and a general servant, who seems to be the straight-edge trying to navigate his way through a crowd of people, most of whom are high on every drug known to man, and fornicating out in the open.
We meet Nellie (Margot Robbie) in dramatic fashion when she crashes her car into a statue on the estate. She's clearly intoxicated. She's not supposed to be there. But, it's Margot Robbie, and you get why Manny is smitten with her. She's cheerful, ambitious, and free-spirited from the beginning.
We meet Jack (Brad Pitt), an actor at the top of his stardom in the silent era of films, despite his alcoholism and womanizing.
Basically, it's hard to talk about this movie without comparisons to Boogie Nights. Almost every major character is introduced in the opening sequence. Within one party sequence, we see relationships form, and people die, and futures coming into focus -- that's all before the title of the movie hits the screen. You know that you're in this for the long haul. You get a sense of how good, and bad things can get for everybody.
Much of the first two acts of the film were simply triumphal. The characters start seeing their careers growing at different times, for different reasons. Ellie is clearly struggling with her past, and with the fact that Hollywood is flooded with temptations. Manny has a dream, and he's motivated, and he's smart, but his path isn't clear, and he's a quiet person. Jack is established; but, his personal life is crumbling.
The third act of the film sees the darkest aspects of the film industry, and Hollywood, imaginable. It keeps pushing us down this dark hole, both figuratively and, strangely literally. There's perseverance and tragedy.
Still, what emerges is a love note to cinema. In an odd way, this is a movie that needs to exist right now. There's no hiding the darkness underneath the light of the film industry. The point is that the art is bigger than life.
I understand what some critics seem to be saying, that the "muchness" can be exhausting. Damien Chazelle took a break from his kinetic editing and camera work in First Man. This movie is shot and paced more similarly to La La Land and Whiplash -- and this is a movie with a runtime of more than three hours.
For me, it was a feast for the eyes and the ears. Linus Sandgren deserves another Oscar nomination for his cinematography. Chazelle seems to have been watching Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson movies on loops to learn how to build sustained tension over the course of long scenes. There's a scene in the movie where Ellie is trying to adapt to the "talking picture" film set that just keeps building and building -- it would have made a good short film on its own.
Well, apparently the critics only gave the film a 55% approval rating. I thought it was pretty damn good.