Film Review - Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood (18)

Hey! You're Rick fuckin' Dalton - don't you forget it.

 

There's a very specific feeling I have going into any 'New Film by Quentin Tarantino', one that dates back to the '90s and my experience post-Reservoir Dogs. I'm no slavering Tarantino fanboy and there are aspects of the film-maker's work with which I struggle, but anytime I sit down to watch his latest cinematic opus there's a sense of expectation - of something uncompromising, unpredictable, impossible to forget. And that reaction in itself is to be cherished. I fell in love with Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood within the first ten minutes and felt the feeling grow. The only question was whether that particular emotion would sustain past the end.

If the director's past films are love letters to 1960s Hollywood, then this one is a velvet-bound outpouring of love-poetry to that time and place. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Rick Dalton, an old-school tough-guy actor whose career is on the skids following the cancellation of his TV western show Bounty Law. Brad Pitt is Cliff Booth, Dalton's stunt double turned driver, and his one true friend in the world. The story - such as it is - follows these two over a couple of days in their lives, Rick as he tries to reassert his acting credentials on a TV-show pilot episode and Cliff, whose cruising around town takes him on a altogether different and more sinister adventure in the wider LA county. Simultaneously we get glimpses into the existence of Rick's next-door neighbour Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), real-life actress and wife of director Roman Polanski, whose life was to be cruelly cut short in the so-called 'Manson Family murders' of August 1969.

The true star of the movie, arguably, is late-Sixties Hollywood itself - the city and its film industry recreated in meticulous, nit-picking detail that's bathed either in California sunshine or glistening neon depending on the time of day. It transforms a ride around the streets in the back of Rick's Cadillac (and there are a few such languorous trips) into a fascinating historical odyssey, albeit one filtered through the director's gilded childhood memories. Every scene is bursting with the Americana of the period - much of it real, some cunningly invented - so that even an interlude in Cliff's trailer as he feeds himself and his dog is a nostalgia-steeped joy. Most loving of all perhaps are the recreations of the era's TV shows, movies and commercials - never less than convincing, but with a lovingly parodic edge to make you grin. And as ever the soundtrack is cherry-picked, with an exquisite radio playlist circa '69 to fuel the whole experience as smoothly as the gas in Rick's tank.

As for the dream casting of DiCaprio and Pitt, it's a source of unalloyed gold, whether the bromantic duo are hanging out in each other's company or cutting a solo path. Leo is as good as he's ever been as Rick - hilariously narcissistic, but sufficiently insecure and aware of his own failings to make us sympathise like we maybe haven't before for a flawed Tarantino protagonist. Brad is the antithesis of the self-regarding Hollywood actor as laid-back, roll-with-the-punches Cliff - effortlessly cool and funny, yet with a dark back-story that makes us wonder what's lurking beneath. Their entwined fates provide the meat of the narrative.

(Yup, that is Al Pacino with the boys.)

Robbie's tragic Sharon Tate, however, supplies the emotional spine, her star rising as Rick's goes into decline. Whereas the real Tate is associated historically with death and the macabre, here it's her life, youth and potential that are celebrated through Robbie's radiant performance, even though a terrifying spectre looms in the minds of those familiar with her story.

That, I think, will mark out a significant dividing line in audience reactions to the movie as a whole. It's essential to know about the notorious Sharon Tate/Charles Manson incident and a little about the dying Hollywood era represented by Rick and Cliff to see what Tarantino is getting at with all this. Without that knowledge there will still be plenty to enjoy, including a treasury of great supporting performances (Sarah Qualley as a precocious hippy chick and Julia Butters as a wise-beyond-her-years child actor are two standouts). But the head-spinning shocks of the final act will only have their intended impact, and the narrative will only knit together thematically, with the help of that prior understanding.

In some ways Once Upon a Time is old-school Tarantino, replete with pithy dialogue, irreverence and allusions to his favourite cinematic genres (the title connects with Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns, while also reminding us that this is a Quentin kind of fairytale). But the film is also reflctive, elegaic and much more heartfelt than anything the auteur has made before. If times past I've want his narratives to get a move-on, this time around I was more than happy take this long, unhurried and meticulously crafted ride, wherever it was all going. And where it goes will be considered either wildly exploitative or deeply moving (or maybe both) depending on the viewer. My response - I slept on it, carried it around for a day or so and found that it sat with me just fine. My love for QT's 9th film sustained - and that love is real.

Gut Reaction: A big fat smile for much of it along with bated breath, hand clutched to mouth, trepidation, then BOOM. Stunned and unexpectedly moved. 

Memorable Moments: Rick gets some acting tips. Cliff rises to a challenge. Sharon goes to the movies.

Ed's Verdict: 9.5/10. A wonderfully realised, undeniably self-indulgent but deeply-felt paean to the Hollywood of a bygone era. Not everyone will love it, but for me it's his best since Pulp Fiction and just maybe (yes, I'm going there) his best ever.