Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood – Review

As promised, this week I’m here to check another movie off my list of summer films to look into in 2019, and I’m at least slightly surprised – and definitely disappointed – to report that Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood, which was perhaps the most anticipated film of the year and household name Quentin Tarantino‘s latest blockbuster effort, is a bit of a dud.  Given the film’s relative success in the critical thoroughfare, that may be a bit of a hot take, but I can’t help but vociferously disagree with the Rotten Tomatoes consensus’ claim that the movie “tempers Tarantino’s provocative impulses” (at times I feel that it does the opposite) or that it evokes any kind of “clarity.”  What Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood is to me is a movie that demonstrates the importance of story structure, the importance of the absence of scenes lacking clear intention and obstacle, and the importance of at least superficially exploring subplots that seem purposefully introduced but are then never again revisited.

Pretty sweet action shot from Rick Dalton’s one-off on the actual television show “The F.B.I.”  Fun fact – they actually digitally replaced the original villain (Burt Reynolds) with Leo.

To call Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood indulgent is both a disservice to the word “indulgent” and a vast understatement of the sheer gratuitousness of what writer-director Quentin Tarantino unironically refers to as his magnum opus.  For one, it’s a bloated 159 minute experience that’s at least 45 minutes longer than it needs to be, with numerous scenes that have no bearing on the film’s plot or the development of its characters seemingly spliced in between scenes that are actually engaging for no discernible reason other than because ol’ QT felt like it.  What results is a movie that’s beautifully shot, and contains stellar art direction and award-worthy adherence to the glitz and glamour of its setting and time period, but is painfully and frustratingly uneven.  Adding to that sense of frustration is the fact that Tarantino’s ninth feature film contains perhaps some of the best performances he’ll ever capture from an excellent cast, with certain sequences (the entire Lancer shooting sequence, for one) finding Leonardo DiCaprio – playing aging and insecure (and fictional) leading man Rick Dalton – truly at the top of his game, and I don’t say that lightly.  Equally as entertaining is Brad Pitt, who plays Dalton’s shadowy but good-natured stuntman Cliff Booth, and who plays a large part in delivering what I found to be Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood‘s most charming scene (for those who have seen the film, I’m of course referring to the Bruce Lee fight flashback).

Leonardo DiCaprio thinking about all the awards he’s gonna win for this movie, probably.

And there’s some solidly crafted tension-building too, which should be a given considering the fact that the Manson Family is involved.  The taut Spahn Movie Ranch sequence is perhaps the film’s high point for me, with Tarantino once again displaying a penchant for creating meaningful suspense and keeping the audience on the edges of their seats for just the right amount of time.  There’s certainly an element of suspense on the macro-scale, too, with viewers who are at least slightly in the know – myself among them – wondering just how Tarantino is going to take the grisly real-life murders that the film ultimately builds to and change them.  That climactic third act, while maybe too over-the-top, chaotic, and gruesome for me, is a reasonably satisfying payoff to complement that tension, albeit an awfully weird one (seriously, where he gets these ideas is just beyond me, but it’s probably a dark place), even if the novelty of the whole revisionist history shtick was inevitably spent on Inglorious Basterds.  At bare minimum, the ending is certainly in keeping with the fairy-tale nature of the film’s title, and in any case, while I certainly can (and do) claim that this movie has a lot of superfluous and unentertaining scenes, I cannot claim that I wasn’t at any point curious to see where things were ultimately going, and that’s something, I guess.

Where do I buy that shirt? And those sunglasses?  And (not fully pictured) that startlingly-good-for-55 physique?

If you’re a fan of Tarantino’s – I wouldn’t consider myself to be much of one, as I enjoyed Django Unchained and Inglorious Basterds quite a bit but thought Pulp Fiction was an overrated bore – there’s a lot for you to enjoy here that’s of the trademark variety, with lots of crooked shots, shots of women’s bare feet (ew), and of course an ultra-violent and fact-subverting ending.  And there’s no denying, in spite of the film’s erratic and ultimately self-serving nature, that a lot of it is a hell of a lot of fun, and contains dialogue between dynamic and exciting characters that feels effectively real.  Where the movie loses steam is in the enormous bulk of screentime spent on watching Cliff drive, or watching Margot Robbie‘s Sharon Tate watch a movie, or just generally watching any given character do something monotonous but Hollywood-feeling without any dialogue at all.  This to me is where Tarantino’s ego really rears its ugly head, with chunks of film being dedicated not to answering the question “How does this drive the story?” but instead to answering the far less compelling questions: “Could I, Quentin Tarantino, film in the Playboy Mansion?” or “Could I, Quentin Tarantino, shut down an entire section of highway in L.A. just to put a bunch of period cars on it and watch Brad Pitt drive Michael Madsen‘s car listlessly to nowhere?”

Me whispering jokes to my mustachio’d friend during the movie.

A friend of mine told me (after I had seen it) that he felt that Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood was one of those movies that’s made primarily for people who are themselves filmmakers to enjoy (think the Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar!, which is a similar movie that I neither liked nor think I fully understood), and that sounds about right in my mind.  I’m willing to state that I didn’t like it because I didn’t fully understand it, and maybe, just maybe, that’s because – news flash – I’m not a filmmaker.  I never lived in Hollywood, or met anyone who was a fading star, and I certainly wasn’t alive when the Manson Family murders took place.  Whatever the exact reason may be, to me, the film was less a captivating experience and more a cautionary tale about what happens when studios give talented auteurs infinite leeway and seemingly refuse to leave anything on the cutting room floor that deserves to be left there.