I think that for almost all photographers digital cameras from the last 5 years with modern lenses are less expensive than going 35mm.
+ You can buy a good APS-C camera used now for 200-400 dollars (e.g., Fuji/Sony/Nikon/Canon from ~2014). This should give you clean ISO up to 1600, and roughly 16 megapixels.+ On these crop cameras, you can get the rough equivalents of a 28mm f2.8, 50mm f2, and 85mm f2 for 200-500 each.
+ So that kit is ~ 300 + 400 + 400 + 400 = $1500.
+ You can likely buy a similar film kit (with some modern features but no autofocus) for $300.
+ The cost of buying film and developing is estimated to be 50-60 cents/shot (rough estimate!).+ Therefore film is less expensive if you take less than 2400 pictures.
Advantages of film: 2-3 stops of dynamic range (not insignificant!), one stop of depth of field. I know there is an advantage with full frame digital over APS-C w.r.t sensor noise, but I’m not sure that applies to film.
I think film results in more thoughtful photographs and is a cheaper entry point to very good quality, which matters in experienced hands. But for everyone else, and especially newcomers, the ability to take a lot of bad pictures to experiment with settings is necessary to learn the craft. When I got my first flash, I likely took 50-100 test shots to learn how the interaction between shutter speed, exposure compensation, and aperture effect the look of the flash in different environments. This would have been expensive with film, and even worse, taken a lot longer than one evening! Practicing with immediate feedback has been really useful for me to learn photography.
On a recent 2 week vacation I took somewhere between 300-400 photos (because why not), and I likely take the equivalent of a single roll of film a week on average. That gives me 2400/36 = 66.7 weeks before I break even, or, I just need my equipment to last me over 16 months. In reality I’m sure it will last me a lot longer.
So as I see it, for most people with normal photographic needs (i.e., are of average skill and need lots of practice to get better), digital is really a way better way to go, because one can practice guilt free and improve with immediate feedback.