Alright look I went back and forth over whether
or not to do a “spoiler review” or not
of this movie because, at first it sort of
felt like maybe impossible to talk about whether or not
it works without getting into things that
are definitely meant to be surprises for the
audience but have everything to do with what
works and/or doesn’t in the film.
And while for awhile I thought I needed to
do one of those “don’t watch past this
point” warnings… ultimately, I don’t
think it’s necessary? So this is kind of that,
but not really.
I’m not going to do big spoilers in the review, and that
basically means I’m not going to get into
certain plot specifics like… the entire third act
of the movie basically.
But, since there’s things like mood, atmosphere,
meaning, impact etc being alluded to - if
you’re super spoiler-sensitive, I’ll let you know right now I'm gonna give it a strong 9 out of 10 call it a
definite must-see; and if that’s all you
need to know, come back and watch this after, um ok.
It's a new coat. I'm breaking it in. I went down a size.
Once Upon A Time...
In Hollywood is at once the most and least
“Quentin Tarantino” Quentin Tarantino
movie the writer/director has yet assembled;
a work so wholly dedicated to full sensory
immersion into his particular cultural and
artistic fixations, fandoms, fantasies, fetishes,
what-have-you that in some respects it makes
Kill Bill feel like a restrained stroll through
a memorabilia museum.
Name a tropey “Taratinoism” and it’s
present and accounted for, over and over again:
Juicy roles for hardworking older character
actors, romantic recreations of a pre-gentrified
Los Angeles, lengthy pop-culture discussions
seemingly for the sake of themselves, tough
guys being tough, pretty girls going barefoot,
dark comedy, scenes of brutal violence (although
a lot fewer than one might expect) that veer
between tense realism and intentional cartoon
artifact, meticulous curated classic rock
soundtrack and - above all else - a swollen-hearted,
overflowing love of film and film-history
with (of course) specific attention lavished
upon the jointly-overlooked realms of mainstream
kitsch and the hidden gems of the grimy, hardworking
B-movie scene.
But, unlike his previous swings through such
material, this time there's an almost wholly
organic feel to the indulgence - to the point
where it (almost) doesn't feel like indulgence
at all… right up until the point it becomes,
as it must, absolutely that.
But even then, and still moreso before that
point, a sense of authenticity and humanity
feels more consistently a priority than it
has in anything the arthouse A-list's most
committed fan of artifact has attempted since
at least Jackie Brown.
Now on one level, the reason why must seem obvious: The film is a work of meta-pop historical-fiction,
set in Hollywood circa-1962 amid the roiling
cultural upheaval sweeping the United States
and the adjacent impending collapse of the
traditional Studio System; orbiting
(but - and this is key - not "centering")
Margot Robbie as doomed rising starlet Sharon
Tate in the weeks and months before, as history
records, she'll be brutally murdered by the
Manson Family cult; heralding an "end of innocence"
zeitgeist shift in L.A., Hollywood and "The
60s" that one can imagine seeming like a pop-culture
apocalypse unfolding to the now 56 year-old
Tarantino as a movie and TV obsessed child of
the time.
But while Robbie's transcendent turn as the
angelic (yet achingly human) Tate is the sun
around which Once Upon A Time's sense of time
and space (and soul) spin, it's protagonists
("heroes" would be pushing it for various reasons) are a fictional duo cut more from Tarantino's more familiar
mold on multiple levels: Leonardo DiCaprio is Rick Dalton, an aging 1950s TV Western star
who probably would've transitioned handily
to big-screen leading man in the Old Days…but those days are coming to an end and are leaving him behind.
Instead, he's growing older, gruffer, more
frustrated (an alcoholic) doing bit parts
in B-movies, reliant more and more on the
loyal presence of Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth
- officially Rick's famously tough (and infamously…
"mysterious") stuntman but these days more
of a driver, ready made alibi, paid drinking
buddy and legit best friend.
The main stretch of the film follows these
three characters through a long, seemingly
average day wherein Rick struggles with a
promising but tough TV guest role, Tate enjoys
a screening of her latest movie with a regular
audience on the DL (Robbie making a quietly-joyful
reaction to a happy/funny moment somehow heartbreaking)
while Cliff runs errands for Rick and ends
up investigating "something strange" going on
with a group of "hippie chicks" camped out
at the Spahn Movie Ranch where he and Cliff
used to play Cowboys in happier times. And if your the sort of person for whom the word spawn movie manse
makes your eyebrows rise up, your are the sort of person who probably doesn't need to do any homework before
they see this movie. This is a snapshot movie. A languid
hangout of a rising star, fading star and
“satellite”-to-a-star at a particular moment in time…
...followed by a plot turn, a several-month
time jump and major tonal-shift; at which
point the rationale for grounding this film
in the realm of realistic but not necessarily
accurate historical fiction and the mix of
real and unreal characters snaps into sharp
relief and what was for a time the least
“confrontational” Tarantino film ever
sets about becoming one of the year’s most
controversial conversation pieces.
As I said it feels wrong to talk details, of the film final stretch, but suffice to say the film’s riskiest gambit
is also where (at least at this early juncture) it might not fully stick the landing in my estimation - ironically
for the same reason the rest of it works so god damn
well: It’s such a treat for the rest of
it to see this particular “bag of tricks”
in restrained, focused mode that a sudden
veer into… “something else” that would
arrive like a mind-blowing out of nowhere
smack in the face any other filmmaker perhaps feels…
“expected,” even obligatory with this
particular name on the marquee.
But! Before that point and in the broadest sweep
of it’s runtime, this is basically a “hang
out” movie - or the Tarantino version of a "hang out" movie - and a damn good one at that where not very
much happens but also everything
happens to the characters as they go about a day
they have no reason to think of as consequential one
and we’re invited to observe the details
of their quietly revealing routines and soak
in the thrift-store nostalgia atmosphere that
for once doesn't feel (in either the fun or
tedious ways that his films sometimes in the past)
like a directorial affectation.
Yeah, the characters still speak to one another
in a shorthand of arcane movie references
- but because they’re all mid-tier film
industry workers rather than “It’s Tarantinoverse
where everyone just talks like that.
Sure, everyone cruise the strip in classic cars listening
to (a lot) of vintage L.A. radio rock because
that’s what would be on the radio then.
Bruce Lee, Steve McQueen, the Playboy Mansion
and various semi-obscure but quite real professionals
of the “Spaghetti Western” film industry turn
up as supporting characters or name-drops
not “because Quentin” but because they
either actually were or would have been connected
to the people/events being depicted.
Tate goes to see one of Dean Martin’s tacky
but then-popular “Matt Helm” movies not
for the satisfaction of kitsch-connosieurs in the audience but because… that was movie she was in at the
time. It's Quentin being Quentin, but it works on multiple levels this time.
And, what I will say of “the stuff I can’t
say much about” is that the sure-to-be-talked-about
surprising place Once Upon A Time…
In Hollywood ultimately goes does absolutely
make organic, even inevitable sense with the
slow-burn buildup that’s come before and
the thematic energies that have been building
beneath the surface - be it the rose-colored
nostalgia for the endearing kitschiness of
Old Hollywood at the end of it’s road, Dalton
and Booth as the apotheosis of the kind of
“should’ve-been-bigger” B-list journeymen
actors Tarantino hero-worships and has made
it his own real-life secondary vocation revitalizing
the careers of, the utter contempt for the
Mansons as people and “conceptually” as the harbingers of real world violence intruding to slaughter
the innocence of Hollywood Americana and “the
movies” (how could we not have predicted
this finally, would, be the villains set that Tarantino
would to hate most of all?) and - of
course - a bracingly earnest (and I would
say successful) swing by both the director
and especially Robbie to let Sharon Tate be
seen as a person once again instead of a monument
to tragedy and our own projections upon her.
Again - this is all still “Quentin being
Quentin,” but in a measured, deliberate
context where there’s a human depth underneath it
(in addition to… dozens of different ways
to read it’s eventual denoument in terms
of message, moral, themes, etc) to the point
where you almost don’t notice that (while
present) the flashes of cartoon ultraviolence
and poetically-vulgar trash talk
are; almost playfully refusing to dominant
the scene as they typically do until… well,
they kind of have to.
Ironically, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
might be even more jam-packed with references,
callbacks and nostalgic bric-a-brac than
even the Kill Bill films; but it’s also
the Tarantino production where they’ve been the least
overwhelming - his best film, I’m not sure…
but it may well be his most human.
9 out of 10 - a fascinating must-see we’ll
be talking about months from now.
