Film Review: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

Sexuality/Nudity Mature
Violence Mature 
Vulgarity Mature
Anti-Catholic Philosophy Mature

The best compliment I can give Quentin Tarantino's new movie, Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, is that it is still lingering in my memory weeks after I saw it.  And that is not something that most modern movies can do.

OUATIH takes place over three days in Hollywood in 1969.  During those days, we primarily follow Rick (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff (Brad Pitt).  Rick is a TV actor who is starting to feel like his career is drying up and may have to resort to filming Italian Westerns.  He is emotional, insecure, and explosive.  Cliff is the yin to Rick's yang.  Cliff is Rick's best friend/stunt double.  He is calm, cool, and collected, never rattled are shaken.  He lives in a small trailer with his dog, but seems content to not be in prison for his wife's death (for which he may or may not be guilty).  The third important person to the story is Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie).  Unlike Rick and Cliff, who are fictional inventions of Tarantino, Tate was a real person who was an up and coming actress who was brutally murdered by the Manson family in her home in 1969.  For most of the movie, we see Tate as a breath of fresh air and a ray of sunshine, loving life in the free-wheeling 1960's.  She comes off as a kind of innocent, a human metaphor for how Tarantino sees this era.  These three stories eventually converge to the night of the Tate murders in a way I will not spoil here.

Tarantino has never been a plot-driven writer.  In fact, I would say that for the first two hours, the movie is a plotless character exploration.  The events of the script seem to be there only for Tarantino to linger in this exotic yesteryear.  He wants you to soak in as much of this era's feeling and aesthetic by following around his characters as the walk around this world.  Normally, this would be a complete deal breaker for me since the element of story is the most important for me as a film-lover.  But what keeps this from devolving into a boring mess are the outstanding performances.

I will not be surprised if all three of the actors mentioned end up with Oscar nominations.  DiCaprio's Rick has the most annoying characteristic of actors: self-involved and self-doubting.  And yet DiCaprio makes Rick incredibly likable and vulnerable.  We feel his frustration when he screws up on set and his sadness at being passed over.  I love the way DiCaprio adds this very subtle stutter that is not over-the-top and barely noticeable.  But it opens up a very personal window into how nervous Rick is about everything.  He constantly has a look of confusion in his eyes as the world around him, the world and the industry he thought he knew, is changing around him.  And yet even with all of that, when Rick is able to meet his potential as an actor, we feel pride and elation for him.

Pitt is perhaps the biggest winner from this film.  I've known and enjoyed him as an actor for many years, but this was the first movie where I finally understood the X-factor that Pitt has.  His Cliff is coolness personified.  Men will want to be him and women will want to be with him.  He is capable without being arrogant.  He is overlooked without being resentful.  He is pure masculinity, especially when he stands in contrast to the hippies in Manson's cult who despise him.  Pitt makes everything look so effortless, but you can feel the skill and star-power he harnesses for this part.

Robbie lights up the screen as Tate.  She has to convey so much of her character with very little dialogue.  It would be easy to play her as an empty-headed Hollywood starlet.  But her sweetness comes off as innocence rather than naivete.  Special mention has to be given to Margaret Qualley as Manson family member Pussycat.  She plays her part as with a crazy energy.  She tries to be mature and seductive but in the way someone too young imagines those things to be.  She is a pitiable character who doesn't understand how pitiable she actually is.  Tarantino has a number of lovely small moments with actors like Bruce Dern, Luke Perry, Al Pacino, and others.  The only performance I didn't acre for was Mike Moh's Bruce Lee, which felt much more like a caricature than a character.

The look and feel of the film is absolutely gorgeous.  Tarantino completely transports you in a way that feels tactile and not artificial.  He makes the time and place look like a somewhere you would want to visit.  Everything is saturated with the sounds and sights of the era that you feel like you could touch it.

But all of this would have been better served by a movie with more of a plot.  Tarantino lingers too much in his scenes because he imagines his audience is as enthralled as he is with his script.  But it always feels like he is about to lose me.  I am barely hanging on because of the actors.

I do have to say that one of the most pleasant things in the script is the friendship between Rick and Cliff.  Even though Cliff is technically Rick's employee, there is never a problem of power dynamic between them.  Early in the film, Rick asks Cliff to fix the antenna on top of his house.  Normally in a movie of this type, this would be a time to explore Cliff's envy of Rick's success and the resentment he feels at doing his manual labor.  But none of that is present.  Cliff is simply doing is boss/buddy a favor.  When Rick, who lives alone, sheepishly asks Cliff if he wants to come in and watch an episode of FBI that will air with him in it, Cliff happily announces that he brought a six-pack of beer just for the occasion.  There was something so wonderfully refreshing in seeing two men have a simple, straightforward manly friendship without all of the normal movie drama.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD.

As I said, I do not intend to spoil the last 45 minutes of the movie.  And I do have to say, that this is the best part of the film.  The final day takes place on the date of the Tate murder.  Knowing this, you can feel the tension of the noose slowly tightening.  In this way, OUATIH is reminiscent of Tarantino's short film in the feature Four Rooms, where the scenes played out long and (frankly) boring until the fast and intense finale.  I will say that the movie has Tarantino's trademark penchant for violence and there is no mistake that it is gratuitous.  Whether you are on board with how he uses it will determine how you feel about the ending.

END POTENTIAL SPOILERS.

Honestly, this is one of Tarantino's best.  Though I say this being not one of his biggest fans.  But he really needs to credit his leading actors with making this movie as good as it is.  Because of them it is watchable, maybe even enjoyable.  But if Tarantino had learned to control his self-indulgent tendencies, this could have been a great movie.