Babbling About 'Babel'

/////SPOILER ALERT!! Do not read this if you haven't seen the movie! /////

In case anyone is wondering why I didn't exit the screening of "Babel" weeping and hugging my fellow man (as other critics apparently have done), the reason is that I simply didn't buy into the conceit: first, the Japanese connection to the the other two stories was tenuous at best (her father gave his shotgun to the Moroccan villager who sold it to the father of the boys...). I concede this as a minor point, and it doesn't diminish the power of the deaf teenager's plight to the movie's compelling premise of global miscommunication.

But a movie of intersecting storylines is only as good as its weakest link. This film's fatal flaw is its least-engaging storyline: the one that takes place in Mexico. And it does diminish the impact of the movie's premise. Not only do these Mexican scenes run-on too long (leaving the impatient viewer to think "I wonder what is going on in Morocco and Japan?") but the actions of the principals run the gamut from indefensible to unbelievably stupid. True to Gonzalez-Inarritu's nonlinear style, the enormity of his characters' stupidity is not revealed until the end of the movie, leaving the audience felling like fools for investing the last two hours sympathizing with characters who behave so foolishly.

Specifically, the phone call Brad Pitt's character makes from the hospital to his Mexican nanny essentially tells her 'the mother of the two children in your care is fighting for her life in a Moroccan hospital after spending an entire day bleeding on a dirt floor' and this nanny thinks: "NOW would be a good time for a family road trip"?? Ridiculous!

And she compounds her questionable judgment by entrusting these kids to her irresponsible, authority-hating nephew? Who then, in the apex of bad judgment that must be a family trait, drops them off in the middle of the desert -- at night -- in order to more easily outrun the border partrol? Unbelievable!

But he promises to come back for them! Yeah, right: pick them up by the third cactus on the right, Einstein!

Thus, the larger issues of man's inability to communicate with his fellow global villagers, not to mention the issues surrounding the tense, mutually-distrustful relationships between Americans and Mexican nationals, are left in the Southwestern dust. That is my definition of an 'ambitious failure.'

But don't take my word for it. Here is what playwright/director Neil LaBute had to say about it in a recent Hollywood Reporter interview: "The script [for Babel] is interesting to talk about with that one. The script was there, obviously. It has to be, but I didn't feel it so strongly. The timeline, the break in the timelines, the pacing -- they were very tenuous. And I thought the connection to the Japanese story was very slight."