Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood: Tarantino at His Most Restrained

To give a proper review to a Quentin Tarantino movie is a near impossible feat. Over his decades of work, he has established himself as one of the last true auteurs that can still mesh with the industrial Hollywood machine. And the reason he’s been so successful in this endeavor is because he made his distinct, art-house B-movie style instantly ubiquitous to his own name and brand. Which makes critiquing his work difficult as every criticism, however valid, can be shrugged away because it can be attributed to Tarantino’s part-gonzo, part-fetishistic style, allowing him to get away with making pretty much any type of film he wants to make. For better or for worse. At this point, the only true way to gauge a Tarantino work is to contrast it with the rest of his filmography. And in that metric, I can’t say that ‘Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood’ is his best or even his most Tarantino-esque movie, but I can say it’s easily his most reserved, which makes for a fascinating experience in and of itself.

In his penultimate film, Tarantino tears his focus off of gangsters, slavers, and Nazis to fixate on another of humanity’s most vile breeds: actors. In early 1969 Los Angeles, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a self-conscious former TV celebrity who took a shot at being a movie star only to tumble back to the smaller screen. Though still working, his emotional and mental stability rests in the hands of Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), his loyal but morally-ambiguous stunt double, gofer, and best buddy. Parallel to his exploits are those of Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), the real-life actress here imagined as a happy yet quietly dissatisfied housewife whose star is rising just a little too slowly for her liking. The film is divided into two distinct halves, the first of which involves Rick attempting to rekindle his career as a villain on the same kind of western show that made him a star in the first place, Cliff having a tension-filled run-in with a mysterious cult of teenage girls on an eerie and familiar studio ranch, and Sharon watching one of her own films with an audience in one of the most humanizing moments in recent movie history. Then, after a six-month time-skip, the narrative refocuses on the three primary players as they recoup from their various victories and defeats on one of the most famous and haunted nights in Hollywood's legacy, here retraced from fact with Tarantino’s gleefully gory vision skewing the truth.

As with all of Tarantino’s films, all the actors bring their absolute A-game. DiCaprio, of course, couldn’t give a bad performance to save his life and here gets to show off the sheer depth of his range, always tinged with the inherent sadness of a sensitive, washed-up has-been praying that he both has one last shot left in him and he’ll somehow manage to avoid screwing it all up. He carries the heart of the film on his sleeve, flashing it just enough for him to disappear into the role without going over-the-top manic with it. This is one of those performances that only one actor could have pulled off and, like almost all of his roles, that actor is Leonardo DiCaprio. This is not to rule out Pitt, whose calm, collected Cliff gives the film a strange meter of patience that Tarantino has avoided in most of his previous ventures. He spends the whole film with a confident smirk on his face, knowing he’s the only one who can break the tension that builds with a slow, controlled burn over the course of the over-two-and-a-half-hour runtime. And he’s more than happy to make the audience wait until the film’s final moments for it to explode into Tarantino’s signature graphic violence. While Leo holds the film's heart, Pitt walks softly and carries it’s sizable stick.

Robbie’s Tate is given the least meat of the primary actors, but she is no less profound in her execution of the role. Her rendition of Tate as a simple, happy woman who has hit something of a career block begs for the layers of her personality to be pulled back one by one to unveil the complexity of her character. Here, Robbie proves herself an underrated master of subtlety as the small facial inflections and vocal quirks make for a quietly tragic performance. All the supporting actors serve their purpose with the kind of enthusiastic gusto that only Tarantino can coax from his performers. Leading them is Al Pacino as a straight-shooting producer and Kurt Russel as a veteran stuntman. Hats go off, however to Dakota Fanning as the Manson Family matriarch, Squeaky. Her performance is suitably jarring as an authoritative and off-putting voice amidst that calculated pacifism of her hippy comrades. In the fat of the pack is Mike Moh as a humorous interpretation of Bruce Lee and Damian Lewis as an expository Steve McQueen.

It feels almost pointless to discuss the actual cinematography as it is a field in which Tarantino has never lacked talent or creativity. As always, his delight at framing the human form begins and ends at the feet, only deviating where necessary for plot purposes. While this can be distracting at times, it’s another one of those Tarantino tropes that has become inoculated to criticism by virtue of it being a Tarantino trope. The worst that can be said about it is that his noted foot fetish has finally spilled over into non-human subjects and inanimate objects, which should be worrying to his psychiatrist though I suspect they have more pressing concerns. Particular mention must be made in regards to the sound design. Various scenes of filming feature the echoing voices of the director and crew, like the holy demands of behind-the-scene gods waiting just off camera. Other sounds and variant frequencies are used to display Rick’s intense stress and Cliff’s status as the film’s de-facto champion, both in simple yet grandiose fashion as Tarantino is like to do.

While a technical whiz and talented director, Tarantino’s true strength is in his deft hand at weaving his characters and themes into a single cohesive unit despite the whiplash of his narratives. ‘Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood’ is very much Tarantino’s vengeance against his intellectual arch-enemies: those who would dare to misinterpret his work as a personal commendation of uber-violence and make him out to be the villain of his own story. It is a dish served ice cold, with each of his characters representing a different element of the film-making industry in regards to this central theme. Rick, the emotional face of the movie, is emblematic of leading actors, Cliff, with his confident yet simple attitude, is the stage hands and technicians who make the actual magic of cinema, and Sharon’s quiet acceptance of a maybe-already-over dream makes her representative of the legions of low-ranking extras and small roles that provide necessary atmosphere and tension. How each of them reacts to the events of the movie reflect their allegiance to their respective faction of Hollywood and the results speak to the true nature of the beast that is film-making.

In a strange way, this makes ‘Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood’ Tarantino’s most relaxed film to date. It’s one of his typical character pieces, but these are perhaps his first personas to make the jump to full-fledged and fleshed out humans. Their naturalism, the period setting, and vaguely innocent atmosphere make his usual litany of pop culture references and anachronisms feel natural instead of shoehorned as they tend to be. It doesn’t seem awkward that characters talk like they’re in hamming it up in a movie because all of them live, breath, and sweat Hollywood. This is further reflected in the film’s aesthetic design, which lands like Cupid’s arrow on Tarantino’s beloved 1960s Hollywood. Slick Cadillacs share the roads with beaten down Chevy Chevelles, extras are dressed in a variety of hippy gear and mod garb, and the radios play an eclectic playlist of classic rock hits tailored to each individual scene.

Overall, this movie was always going to be a must-see and it easily lives up to its own hype. The fact that the performances are above average even by Tarantino’s high standard is just icing on the cake. There are flaws, to be sure, but they are, if anything, just another part of Tarantino’s cinematic charm and sorcery. This is the ninth of Tarantino’s promised ten-picture body of work and by now it’s safe to say that you’re either on-board with his manic, masculine, unironic narrative style or not. If you’re in the latter group, then know that this is easily his least gratuitous film and he makes an effort to show restraint in the name of storytelling. This is a Tarantino movie for people who don't like Tarantino movies. If you are in the former category, however, just know that this film features the first, only, and best use of Chekov’s flamethrower. That should be enough to sate you. 5/5.

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