Written and directed by Damien Chazelle
Stars: Diego Calva, Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, Li Jin Li, Lukas Haas, Olivia Wilde, Tobey Maguire, and Flea
After the miserable experience of watching La La Land earlier this year, my expectations for this movie were very low. Hearing the mixed reception of the movie during TIFF, I believe. People either loved the movie or hated it. I was in the middle with it.
Touted as the love letter to the movies like Empire of Light or The Fabelmans did before it, this completes that unexpected trilogy. Taking place during the waning times of the silence film era Hollywood. Drugs, booze and hedonism was in full effect. The most unlikely of people; an aspiring filmmaker, Manny (Calva), an actress Nellie (Robbie), and an aging silent film star, Jack Conrad (Pitt) lives intersect with hilarious, disastrous results.
Seeing the movie is like you are in a fever dream. I kept thinking, did I just see that? Did that happen? What am I looking at?
The first half of the movie is like a roller coaster ride. You bolt out like a bat out of hell. Your head is spinning. Everything is a blur. Then, the second half of the movie slows way down. You are returning back to the starting position. That's where the movie lost me. I thought the movie was going to be nonstop debauchery from start to finish. It was not.
It felt confused to me. It seems that Chazelle threw everything at the wall to find something to stick. Not all of it did. A couple of characters in the movie could have been cut from the movie.
Out of the performance that have been nominated for awards so far, I have enjoyed Calva's performance more that Robbie's. He was hell of lot better than Pitt's.
The movie looked good, but it was not cohesive enough for me to recommend people watch it.
Rating: 7/10
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