Filmic Friday 237: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood

Confession time: I saw this movie a couple of weeks ago, but I've been dragging my heels on writing a review on it because of my movie-viewing backlog. I kind of wish I'd just written the review the night I watched it, but! A couple of weeks out, I can really tell you what I think, not just how it made me feel!

I love this poster. It's possibly the most honest movie poster I've ever seen.

So, first things first - what the heck even is Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood?

This movie is Quentin Tarrentino's simultaneous love letter to the world of Hollywood in the 1960s and a hate-screed against the Manson family. And it's very good at being both without making a single one of it's characters a saint. Everyone is human. Except for the Manson Family. And Brandy, but she's a pit bull.

The main characters of this movie are threefold: We have the story of Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) and his stunt man Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), each with their own arc and importance, and we have the story of Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). While Cliff and Rick's stories are intertwined from the first scene, Sharon Tate is Rick's neighbor up the hill, and her story is slowly bound to theirs, though they don't really meet much.

Two fantastic actors completely disappearing into characters!

DiCaprio's Rick Dalton is struggling to survive in a Hollywood that no longer needs a shiny cowboy with fancy gunwork and a stunt double. He doesn't recognize this world anymore, and it's dragging him down. Rick's stunt-double, Cliff Booth, is also struggling, since the biggest stunt coordinators refuse to work with him for... reasons. I won't spoil that for you, but I can promise you that it involves both a flashback with a speargun and Bruce Lee.

The movie mostly follows Rick Dalton's later career, which, coincidentally, is also Cliff's later career. The two have interactions with directors, actors, and... the Manson Family - though neither knows it at the time. When the movie does shift to Sharon Tate, however, what was a struggle to survive in a Hollywood that has changed suddenly becomes a tale of an actor on the rise and her zest for life.

I'd say Margot's portrayal of a young, hopeful Sharon Tate is one of her best performances.

There is an undertone of anxiety to everything - Rick's failures, Cliff's interactions with Pussycat (one of the Family), and Sharon Tate cheating on her husband while pregnant (though I'm, like, 90% sure everyone involved knew what was going on in the movie, since they're all at a party together and even dancing together at one point). Yet there's also a totally innocent side to everything - Rick meeting the young girl he costars with on Lancer, Cliff hanging out with Brandy (his beloved dog), Sharon's joy at seeing herself on a marquis...

And then Charlie Manson decides he wants to visit someone who used to live where Sharon Tate lives now. He appears in exactly one scene. His only lines are to innocuously ask where the previous tenants have gone, but you know. You know who he is.

The smug turd...

The story really gets going once Cliff gives Pussycat a ride and meets Squeaky Fromme at the old ranch where he and Rick used to shoot westerns. There are fights, arguments, and rage, but somehow, the weirdest thing to come out of this interaction is an acid-laced cigarette.

And a very young lady trying to bed Cliff, who has none of her nonsense.

Meanwhile, Rick is trying to remember what it was to be a real actor once more, and his interactions with child actor Trudi are fantastic.

It's also amazing to watch a man who has disappeared into a role make that character disappear into another role.

Without (hopefully) spoiling too much, let me just say that the absolute MVP of this movie is actually Brandy, who just wants her dinner, but keeps getting interrupted.

This is a very, very good dog.

In the end, I would absolutely recommend watching this movie! I mean, it's still got four showings a day at my local major theater, and they dropped the Nolan Batman films way faster than this. It's good stuff!

If you want to see just how alternate the alternate history of Quentin Tarrentino can be, definitely give this one a watch. Just be prepared for him continuing to indulge his weird foot fetish. I don't get it dude. I'm sorry. At least it's not 80% of the movie this time...

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