Babel

last updated 8 January 2015

When Mexican director Alejandro GonzÃ¡lez IÃ±Ã¡rritu makes a movie, he pours his passion all over the screen, said David Denby in The New Yorker. Like his last film, 21 Grams, Babel is moving, beautiful, and impeccably edited. IÃ±Ã¡rritu is a genius, but he 'œabuses his audience with a humorless fatalism and a piling up of calamities that borders on the ludicrous.' The movie is as exciting as films can get, but in the end, it's hard to discern a message from all this hubbub. From what I can tell, the point is the idea that we are all the same under our skin, said Andrew O'Hehir in Salon.com. Ferociously argued, yes, but that's 'œa stoned college freshman's profound theory.' We just have to accept that there is no center to this movie, which focuses alternately on an American couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett), a Mexican nanny and her charges, a Japanese teen, and Moroccan villagers. These stories are told well, with many memorable and affecting moments. The acting, too, is superb, said Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News—not that of the huge stars (Pitt is a fist-thumping embarrassment) but that of nobodies such as Elle Fanning and Nathan Gamble. 'œYou will never see more authentic looks of fear' than on the faces of these two, playing kids who end up stranded in the desert.

Rating: R