In the grand tradition of movies made about movies, Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood showcases Tarantino's ability to flex his aesthetic tendencies while making a movie that feels like it could have been made by anybody. It is, in my view, his most accessible work for someone who either doesn't know or enjoy his style. Unfortunately -- even for me, who does not much care for Tarantino-isms -- this disconnect also made me feel the movie was severely lacking in any style at all.
In what attempts to be a sweeping series of interrelated character studies, Hollywood works best in its few moments of novelty. Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt deliver stunning performances as a fictional star/stunt double navigating the changing screen cultures of 1969. As Rick Dalton (Leo) attempts to land solid jobs to reclaim some of his former glory, his double Cliff Booth (Brad) assists him as something between partner, friend, and personal assistant. There's not much plot here, but the series of vignettes are mostly charming.
While the film mostly works through its evocation of nostalgia (that is, nostalgia for a mostly white male-dominated industry) and its showbiz jokes about the inner workings of classic Hollywood, it also plays with convention by using fictional characters to interact and comment upon historical figures. It is here where my ambivalence toward the film begins. Certain characters are painted broadly -- even offensively -- such as the caricature of Bruce Lee, and it's funny in the moment but it's hardly realistic. Which forces the question as to what exactly Tarantino is doing. The timestamped details are so specific, while the fictionalized elements are bizarrely stretched if not totally disconnected from reality. Why? (I should add that Lee's characterization could easily be added to the list of racist tendencies in Tarantino's filmography, along with the dry slurs against Mexicans that pop up in this flick).
Perhaps the answer lies in the titular suggestion of a fairytale, and in the film's finale, which further emphasizes the laughably false nature of this story. Tarantino is no stranger to rewriting history, and so perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. But something about the ending rang hollow to me, as the Manson family would-be murderers approach Sharon Tate's house and get distracted by a drunken Leo. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for serial killers and cults, but I was kind of hoping for a bleak ending that recounted the crimes, much like they were depicted in the amazing NBC series Aquarius (which I will always hate NBC for cancelling early). Instead, we get a highly moralistic revision in which the family, declaring that they blame Hollywood for making them violent and insane, turn from the Polanski-Tate property and instead attack Rick Dalton's house. The violence they hoped to enact on celebrity is turned back on them in a brutal, hilarious twist ending, followed by a denouement in which the historical Tate murder victims invite Dalton over for drinks.
It's clever and interesting, I suppose. Just not my preference. As for the bulk of the film, Tarantino's typical writerly and directorial skills are fairly typical, if a bit watered down. Tonally and in terms of pacing, the whole picture feels very unlike his other work and more akin to a more traditional, polished, classic director. Then again, some of his -isms come into play here, along with a strange assortment of unusual crap, such as the long takes of Brad Pitt cruising around town. It's just weird. It's Tarantino. I don't understand him or his fans. His movies almost never do anything, much less mean anything; he uses them as a stylized system of ranting. He uses them almost as a form of indoctrination to his rabid fans, a very real and often vicious cult themselves.
Come to think on it, I'm surprised he didn't just do a straight-up Manson movie.
*Note: Not all the characters based in reality are caricatured or super fictionalized. I thought Margot Robbie's performance as Sharon Tate was fabulous, but that character is relegated to supporting cast My preferences would have been to dive into her story a bit more. But as I said earlier, I'm a sucker for the dark stuff. That, and any more focus on Tate would be to allow a woman some substance in a Tarantino movie (Jackie Brown aside), and we all know that won't happen. No, he's content to have his version of a leading lady admiring herself (playing a klutz, no less) on the silver screen. The only other consequential female characters are a child (played for laughs and to praise Leo) and a hippie (who offers to blow Brad, who uncharacteristically denies her and demands her age and ID).
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