Could anyone else but Quentin Tarantino come up with this movie? Could anyone else but Quentin Tarantino get away with it?
Once Upon a Time….in Hollywood has a long story to tell and it takes its time to tell it. Just like the era that this movie takes place in (1969), OUTH is shot and presented like it’s from that time. Slower paced, slower editing, long lingering takes. With a runtime of two hours and forty minutes, there were a few times where I wondered what I was watching. There’s no hand-holding in scenes that are seemingly put in random order, very much like “a day in the life of” composition following around (mostly) two men falling out of favor in Hollywood’s most important industry. But at the end–as Quentin usually does–he leaves you realizing you watched a lot more substance than you first thought you did.
Rick Dalton’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) acting career is dissolving in front of him. A mainstay in Western movies for years, the genre is dying out. He finds himself being left out of work, faced with the “demeaning” prospect of going to Italy to make Spaghetti Westerns. His long time stuntman, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is in the same boat. When Rick doesn’t get work, neither does he. The two go back years and working so close together, they’ve become good friends. In order to help Cliff out, Rick has hired him as his personal assistant.
While there are parts where I felt like the movie meanders, even in those scenes, Quentin’s ability to write great dialog is there to keep it interesting. The movie is by far at its best when DiCaprio and Pitt share screen time. They have fantastic chemistry and their relationship that is put through the wringer because of the condition of their respective careers is the strongest part of the story and is what holds it together
Rick almost loses his mind when he can no longer deny that his career might be ending. The obvious threat is the lack of income and that rears its ugly head in an extra painful way when Rick has to tell Cliff he can’t keep him employed for much longer. What mostly scares RIck is being an actor is his entire self-worth. He loves the attention and the praise when he’s recognized for his work.
Cliff has appeared on screen all the time too…but no one knows when it’s him. That’s a big part of the job, the audience isn’t supposed to recognize when the stuntman steps into the role. It’s a pretty thankless job. For Cliff, it’s not the audience connection he loves, it’s the people he works with. They know what he does and how hard he works. It’s this job that’s given him his best friend, Rick. Being left behind in Hollywood is just as painful for him.
One of the best scenes–the one that brought me fully into the movie–is where Rick is on set of a new Western production. He managed to land the part of the villain and he’s nervous about it. He turns to drinking way too much–another layer of self-sabotage–as he panics about proving to everyone that he’s still relevant. His co-star, Trudi Fraser, is a child actor who ends up being a major factor in changing his life. At first, he sees her as a threat. She’s going full method acting for this role. She’s dead serious about acting. This is her profession. This is serious this is her life. Trudi has the confidence and drive that Rick has lost. She might be a child (huge props to Julia Butters, she’s an amazing actor-she literally goes to toe with Leonardo DiCaprio) but she’s the competition. The new, new guard. They talk for a while and she reassures him it’ll be all okay. He struggles in one scene and then crushes it another. Trudi, proud as can be, compliments his work. Rick gets validation from a peer. She might be ten but she’s right, it’ll be okay. He just has to keep moving.
Something similar happens to Cliff with worse results when he goes off on an adventure of his own, finding himself on a ranch that’s been taken over by hippies (of the Charles Manson follower kind). The ranch belongs to an old colleague, one he worked with on the cowboy series Rick was on for years. It turns out the connection he had with this man was only important to himself. While this guy doesn’t remember him, he leaves thinking that it’s time to go find Rick. He has a real history with Rick, no one can deny him that.
The B-plot of the story is with Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). She’s Rick’s next door neighbor, pregnant with Roman Polanski’s baby. She’s young Hollywood and she also goes about her day absorbing what Hollywood can give to her.
Part of the meandering feeling comes from sections that are more or less old Hollywood sightseeing. A few times I thought the message of the movie was “Hey, you know what’s great? Driving down Hollywood Boulevard in a convertible. Want to see how great that is? How about this backstage movie lot? That’s just cool, man.” Tarantino can’t but help slather his admiration for anything he idolized as a kid.
Through the movie, you get to see the struggles and brief joys of Rick, Cliff, and Sharon. Rick trying to throw his weight around with the new superstar in town, Bruce Lee. Cliff holding on to Rick and reconnecting with him. Sharon looking for moments of happiness with the people around her, waiting for her new family and future to become reality. When their lives intersect at the end, we are left with looking at the future with each of them. At times we were uncertain about who would have a future at all.
This is an unexpected movie. It’s hard to break it apart efficiently without digging into every scene. I’m scratching the surface here. Once Upon a Time needs to be experienced first and then talked about. Everyone’s perception will be different and valid. Tarantino makes divisive movies, you either love it or think it’s a waste of time.
I went through a lot of thoughts in just under three hours. Starting with, what is going on and what is this about? And why should I care? And with Tarantino, he answers those questions–once again–at his pace and in the manner he wants to with his colorful characters. Love them or hate them, or even both at the same time or from scene to scene. I did find myself come to love Rick and Cliff, flaws and all. I also caught myself thinking that will this be the first movie that Tarantino does with his trademark liberal use of cursing but be shockingly devoid of violence? When the violence does go down–and it does in Tarantino’s trademark cinematic glory–I was thrilled to see it. And that bothered me because I thought, is that all it takes to seal my final thoughts on a movie? A dose of hyper-violence to tickle my dopamine spigot to make me sit wide-eyed and clap like a dope? On the surface, yes. I mean, Tarantino can frame and execute pandamonium like few others. It’s nuts.
But it comes down to who is in the scene and what happens to them. Tarantino doing another spin of revisionist history to make the good guys win. To give them a future and not an end despite the credits marking the end. This story that Tarantino is finished but the characters continue to go on. I like that.
A few times here I’ve mentioned how long this movie is. It sounds like a detriment and it will be to a lot of people. I’ve thought a lot about what a more aggressive edit could do. What could be condensed or taken out entirely? I’ve come to the conclusion that it would become a different story and this is the cut that was meant to be.
