2019’s Once Upon a
Time… In Hollywood, written and directed by Quentin Taratino.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile
Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Al Pacino, Timothy Olyphant, Kurt Russell, Luke Perry,
Bruce Dern, Clifton Collins Jr, and not Tim Roth.
What is it about?
Set in 1969 Los Angeles, fading television star Rick Dalton
(Leonardo DiCaprio) is struggling to adjust to his flatlining Hollywood
career. With his stunt double and friend Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) in tow, the
two of them have to adjust to the changing landscape of the political culture
of the time as they grapple with aging. Further complicating matters is Rick’s
neighbour, a pregnant Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), is targeted by members of Charles Manson’s cult. Will Rick and Cliff become
footnotes in an historical tragedy, or finish like a fairy tale?
Why is it worth seeing?
Quentin Tarantino (QT) has never been accused of being
subtle. His films are typically shocking, in your face, adrenaline infused, and
always a pastiche of his bizarro but cult informed movie taste. Once Upon… features scenes of all of those
qualities, in a loving homage to the end of the flower power decade, but it
also features something not as often witnessed in QT’s oeuvre- surprises,
conducted through a type of patient craftsmanship.
I still remember the first time I saw Pulp Fiction- its loving tribute to loser hitmen, gangster fixers, and juking palookas featured spectacular left turns that I didn’t see coming. Nobody did. It just wasn’t the status quo for mainstream art house pictures to feature both washed and legit movie stars interacting with leather clad gimps participating in torture below pawnshops. But after that, (and eight other films that have started to feel similar), you began to expect a certain kind of perverted rhythm, ending in something like a Mexican stand-off where a lot of people (or everybody) don’t walk away from the carnage. Maybe throw in a pop song in the background for good measure. All this was done in the service of setting up genre pieces grounded by QT’s love of exploitation films and schlock- a gangster film here, a ninja revenge western there. But more recent period QT has began to mine history for the settings of his stories, and here, his take on the Manson’s Cult murders of California, and what would happen to the key players, fooled me yet again. It’s conclusion goes to a similar place for the always provocative auteur, but the choices in how to get there are so unprecedented. There’s nothing like a master who is at the top of his craft pleasantly surprising his audience.
It sounds simple, but the reason The Hateful Eight didn’t work as a suspense thriller as well as it could have, was because of QT’s decision to not chronicle the events taking place at the haberdashery in a linear fashion (perhaps he was trying to copy Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and Kill Bill Pt.1’s disjointed narratives). Once Upon… doesn’t make that mistake, and one is reminded of Titanic (and not because it also featured Leo) in that the audience knows what’s coming, dreads it, and tries to pray for a way for history not to play itself out. QT’s films are too long and indulgent (no exception here), but the initially nagging (followed by urgent foreboding) sense of upending tragedy, fueled by periodic calendar and clock updates, funnels the film to its surprising and furious conclusion.
QT relishes few things more than movie stars. His film catalogue is a cinephile’s dream list of both stars (and cult figures) of yesteryear, and this year, and Once Upon drills even deeper into his love of Hollywood. Penetrating deep into a world of film sets, slick agents, stuntmen culture, and a meta structure where a film shoot is almost imperceptible from the real world, it’s almost surprising it took QT this long to make a film set entirely in Tinseltown (like the fever dream of True Romance fans). In Leonardo DiCaprio’s fading star, who is given a wake up call regarding his career aspects, he has to deal with a sense of unmet expectations and disappointment that mirror the 1970’s eventual death of hippie culture (and burgeoning of eventual 80’s yuppies). Besides booze, the only constant in his life is Brad Pitt’s character, the ex stunt man who really just handles his friend’s life with no complaints. With all due respect to Leo, it’s Pitt who steals the show as the mysteriously gorgeous handler, with an unknown past full of murderous questions, and whom is as capable at handling any situation (no matter how under the influence or how bizarre), as he is at nonchalantly drifting through life. It’s as if his Ocean’s 11 character got really good at kung fu and started wearing moccasins. But they’re the entrees in a succulent feast of actors, and it’s delight trying to keep up with the amount of people who stroll through the movie.
Good times described, for the quibbles it’s tough to not
have a nagging feeling that QT just doesn’t care for women and how they’re at
times portrayed in his films. While he clearly has a fetish for feet, I’m not
sure he feels the same way for the humans attached to them. While his script
shows love in Margot Robbie’s portrayal of Sharon Tate’s fateful character, it
certainly doesn’t for anyone else of the female persuasion. But at the risk of
sounding like he’s off the hook- that’s just not QT’s bag. You can hear him
cackling maniacally behind the screen as he sets fire to our expectations. In
fact, Once Upon also features zero
utterances of racial epithets, although that may be more reflective of the
setting and the lack of opportunity for minorities, than an actual wake up call
to our raconteur. And don’t ask QT how he seems to feel for hippies- the film’s
final scene will provide a litmus test towards your funny bone’s tolerance for
pain and suffering to those who had long hair and promoted love and
understanding. Just let it be known that Once
Upon’s sense of sentiment and irony understands that the death of hippies
preceded society starting to look like the very thing it claimed to hate so
much.
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