Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt star in "Babel."

"Babel" is exhausting. And exhilarating. Sometimes at the same time.

With a fractured timeline, it glides around the globe, stitching together four stories about parents and children, miscommunication, barriers, borders, pain and compassion. People are literally or figuratively lost in the desert, and it's only through the crucible of a crisis that they sometimes find each other.

		Babel Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, Adriana Barraza. Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Rating: R for violence, some graphic nudity, sexual content, language and some drug use. Web site: www.paramountvantage.com/babel/ Related article Director hopes 'Babel' will spark discussion, questions

It makes us care deeply about its characters, whether they are Moroccan boys trying to protect their goats from jackals or a deaf Japanese teenager who feels like an outsider or a Mexican nanny who just wants to go to her son's wedding across the border or American tourists looking to escape the grief of a lost child.

The stitching from one story and nation to another is loose until the end, when director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu finally pulls the thread taut and you can see how the stories are linked and what the chronology actually is. He and Guillermo Arriaga came up with the idea for the movie, and Arriaga wrote it.

The biggest names are Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett as the generically named Richard and Susan Jones, a California couple traveling in Morocco.

Sitting at an outdoor cafe where Blanchett's germ-phobic American reaches for her Purell and forbids her husband from cooling his drink with ice, she asks, "Why did we come here?" He replies, "To be alone."

They are trying to escape their grief over the death of their infant back in America. That's also where a Mexican nanny named Amelia (Adriana Barraza) is caring for their two young children.

Amelia is a gentle, steadying force who is torn when the Joneses cannot return as planned so she can attend her son's wedding in Mexico. Out of options, she loads them into the car when her nephew (Gael Garcia Bernal) arrives to drive her across the border.

In Morocco, two brothers squabble over a rifle their father has bought to help them keep their goats safe. When a shot finds a bus carrying the Americans, the presumption immediately is terrorism.

The final strand of the story takes place in Tokyo, where a deaf girl (Rinko Kikuchi) lives with her widowed father (Koji Yashuko). She is a bundle of unbridled emotions -- rebellion, anger and sadness -- all being played out with sexually inappropriate behavior.

Inarritu winds up the tension as he and editor Stephen Mirrione, a collaborator from "21 Grams," switch from country to country, as the tempers, temperatures and danger rise.

A generous gift carries a horrible cost. An accident accelerates into a tragedy with international proportions. Mistakes are compounded by misunderstandings and ethnic animosity. A desire to be heard has never been louder. In the end, it's a simple act of kindness or the reaching for a hand that unite people.

Much of the attention has centered on Pitt, whose usually golden hair is dark and threaded with gray, and whose emotions are laid bare. Unable to play the glib pretty boy, he has never been better or more effective in what is a supporting role. The other standout is Barraza as the nanny, and she has the sort of scenes that seem like perfect Oscar bait. The four young children, including Elle Fanning, also deserve to be singled out for praise.

At roughly 142 minutes, "Babel" seems about 10 minutes too long, with the Tokyo episode the most in need of streamlining. Nothing may ever match the power of "21 Grams," which Inarritu considers the middle of his trilogy of films about children and parents, but "Babel" is a remarkable movie about the barriers that divide people and the humanity that unites them.