Once Upon a Time in… Tarantinoland

There are several narratives that "Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood" can be neatly slotted into. It's another of Quentin Tarantino's revisionist historical fantasies. It's another exercise in paying homage to Tarantino's favorite media, specifically the film and television of the late 1960s. It can be treated as a retrospective of all the films that Tarantino has made so far, referencing and sometimes outright borrowing elements that we've become familiar with over the years. For instance, there's a character named Pussycat, played by Margaret Qualley, whose bare feet are seen prominently in several shots.

I think the best description, however, is that the movie is primarily a trip to Hollywood in 1969 the way it exists in the fantasies of Quentin Tarantino. It's a Hollywood full of talented people who love movies and media as much as Tarantino does, where Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) happily visits a theater to see "The Wrecking Crew," a movie she appeared in, and fictional actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stuntman/personal assistant Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) giddily watch Rick's guest appearance on the latest episode of "FBI" together. It's a universe where Booth is so tough that he beats up Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) and fearlessly tangles with the Manson family. It's a universe where a career downturn for Rick means going off to Italy to make spaghetti westerns with Sergio Corbucci. Cameos abound, often familiar names like Damian Lewis and Timothy Olyphant, playing other familiar names like Steve McQueen and James Stacy.

All of this is a lot of fun, especially if you're a movie nerd or a history nerd, and I fit that description. The exhaustive detail of the production design, which often seems smothered in movie posters, advertisements, and period product placement, is a marvel. The carefully curated soundtrack, the fringe-heavy fashions, and the resurrected LA landmarks don't hurt either. You can tell that Tarantino had so much fun creating the snippets we see of Rick Dalton's career, from the black and white TV western where he rose to fame, to his fantasy of playing the Steve McQueen role in "The Great Escape." If you're not already fond of the subject matter, however, I'm not sure how well "Once Upon a Time… " is going to come across.

There's not much of a plot here to speak of, and it all pretty much hinges on the viewer knowing about the murders of Sharon Tate and her friends. Rick lives next door to Tate, creating the expectation that he and Cliff are eventually going to become involved in the terrible event. We see various Manson Family members hanging around town, notably Pussycat, but nobody ever explains who they are. For the most part, Rick and Cliff are just keeping busy working on Cliff's latest TV show, the pilot of a western called "Lancer." When events do ramp up toward a bloody finale, the results aren't very satisfying, even if you are familiar with the events of the Tate LaBianca murders. The final ten minutes of the film are ugly and violent and a jarring departure from everything that's gone on before. But on the other hand, it's very Quentin Tarantino.

And this makes it very difficult to parse the film. DiCaprio and Pitt are fun to watch as Rick and Cliff, both looking older than I remember, both spoofing their screen images and flirting with the kind of uber-masculine roles that we don't see them play very often anymore. Margot Robbie gets about one good scene as Sharon Tate, but actually isn't in the movie all that much. Everyone's insecure, and everyone's facing irrelevance, adding a little melancholy to the works. Maybe the director is starting to feel his age. It's nice to see some of Tarantino's regulars like Bruce Dern, Kurt Russell, and Zoe Bell pop up, but nobody stays long enough to make much of an impression. The movie works best as a hangout film and a nostalgia trip, and stumbles whenever it approaches any other genre.

Frankly, this is the most indulgent of a long string of indulgent Quentin Tarantino movies. I still watch them, but they've been getting harder and harder for me to enjoy with each successive project. There are still fun little individual character moments, like Cliff interacting with his dog, or Rick chatting with a snippy child actress, but it takes a lot of patience to get there. And I wonder if I'm going to run out of patience before Tarantino runs out of films - apparently he's only planning to make one more.
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