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So often the advent of one’s movie stardom hinges on chance. A teenage Lana Turner skipping class for a coke at a Sunset Boulevard malt shop where the publisher of The Hollywood Reporter also happened to be stopped for a snack. A 19-year-old, not-yet-blonde Marilyn Monroe drawing the eye of a photographer snapping pics of the lovely young women manning the aircraft factories temporarily vacated by male employees now off fighting in the war. A 31-year-old Tippi Hedren deciding to take the part in the diet soda TV commercial that would coincidentally get her seen by a looking-for-his-next-Grace-Kelly Alfred Hitchcock.

One of the several principal characters of Babylon, Damien Chazelle’s Hollywood epic spanning from 1926 to 1952, is in the lineage of these actresses, not just because she is beautiful and blonde and a gifted (though constantly underestimated) actress but also because her being recognized en masse as all those things is also contingent on the alchemy of being at the right place at the right time. 

Read the rest of the review at 425.