Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2006)

Don't worry too much about these characters. You won't be seeing a whole lot of them.
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About halfway through Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Babel,” I asked myself, “What do a sexually frustrated, deaf-mute Japanese girl and a wedding in Mexico have to do with a presumed terrorist shooting in Morocco?” For those of you playing at home, the answer is: absolutely nothing.

“Babel” follows four separate stories, all connected through paper-thin plot contrivances. Susan (Cate Blanchett) and Richard (a grey-haired, sunken-eyed Brad Pitt) are a troubled married couple vacationing in Morocco. Meanwhile, two local boys receive a hunting rifle from their father. In Tokyo, a young deaf-mute named Chieko (Rinku Kikuchi) struggles with her disability and self-image. And in San Diego, a nanny (Adriana Barraza) takes Susan and Richard’s children across the Mexican border to attend her son’s wedding. All of their lives are thrown into disarray when a stray bullet from the aforementioned hunting rifle hits a tour bus and seriously wounds Susan.

If that plot synopsis sounded tedious, it’s because it is. “Babel” is a film with everything going for it: a stellar cast, a talented director, phenomenal cinematography. But herein lies the problem; “Babel” simply has too much going for it, and it lacks the focus necessary to achieve any semblance of meaning. It ultimately spreads itself too thin and becomes bogged down under the weight of the loose subplots, which wander aimlessly through most of the film.

The multiple plotlines are an enormous hindrance to this film. While intriguing and supposed “central” characters like Susan and Richard receive a criminally minuscule amount of screentime, the Mexican wedding and Chieko subplots overpower and distract to the point of annoyance. The Chieko portion of the film is especially useless and out-of-place. It feels like an entirely separate movie, in no way connected to the central plot until the last five minutes of the film. How can I focus on the terrorist act in Morocco when I’m too busy worrying about the deaf girl in Tokyo?

“Babel” also commits the cardinal sin of being far too long. The plot moves sluggishly and meanders about for its entirety, and it clocks in at a whopping 142 minutes, which is entirely too lengthy for the infinitesimal amount of story progression taking place. It becomes a labor to watch.

The performances, for the most part, are strong. But due to the large number of central characters involved, we never get a sense of who these people really are. Cate Blanchett, possibly the strongest talent in the film, is reduced to laying on a dirty rug for two hours. Sadly, I found that I really couldn’t care less about any of these characters. It’s a very detached movie.

I hate to compare “Babel” to last year’s horribly contrived “Crash” (I still haven’t forgiven the Academy for that one and I don’t think I ever will), but the two are strikingly similar in their approach. If “Crash” taught us that falling down the stairs in slow motion cures racism, then “Babel” convinced me that getting shot in the neck solves marital problems. It’s a surprisingly shallow film in this way, and it simply throws any sense of realism or nuance out the window.

I can’t guarantee you’ll hate it. There’s a fair share of critics out there singing the praises of “Babel.” Heck, if you enjoyed the sad excuse for a film that was “Crash,” you might absolutely love it. But for me, “Babel” was nothing more than glorified Oscar bait. It’s a great looking film, with strong performances and a great director to support them. But ultimately, “Babel” just feels empty and lifeless.