Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood Review: Not Quite A Fairytale Ending
Sony Pictures
Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is Quentin Tarantino’s 9th and supposedly penultimate film. It’s the fourth revisionist history/period piece he’s made in a row, when 2009’s Inglorious Basterds ushered in a new era of the director’s filmography. With this latest installment, we’ve come full meta circle on Tarantino. He went from borrowing themes found in spaghetti westerns (Kill Bill), to making spaghetti westerns (Django Unchained), to now making a film where the main character is acting in spaghetti westerns.
Though the film largely follows similar beats as the last three movies before it, it’s arguably the most restrained offering of the four. This is Tarantino at his most tame. Save for the third act (which compared to previous films, is significantly scaled down in terms of violence), this film barely has Tarantino’s fingerprints on it.
The snappy, memorable, quotable, dialogue? Largely absent. Characters that ooze coolness and general bad-assery? The closet thing we have to that is Cliff Booth, played to perfection by Brad Pitt. But other than that? Nope. A cartoonish level of absurdist violence? No, not really.
That being said, it’s the most realistic, most human film the director has made since Jackie Brown; for whatever that’s worth. The bromance between the film’s two leads is palpable and one of the strongest relationships to ever exist in Tarantino’s universe.
The lead characters aren’t foul-mouthed hitmen, or ass-kicking heroines - they’re flawed humans and fading stars, living fairly unenvious lives. They have a loyalty to each other (though Booth is much more loyal to Dalton than the other way around) and a shared feeling of uneasiness about what lies ahead for them professionally.
The scope of the story alternates between small (the career of Leonardo Dicaprio’s Rick Dalton, and his friendship with Pitt’s Booth), and large (1969 Los Angeles, the Manson Family), and does so relatively effectively; although there are times where the film drags - seemingly for no other reason than to allow Tarantino to indulge and reminisce about an era that once was.
For those as enamored with late 60s Hollywood culture and moviemaking culture at large as its director, Once Upon a Time … will surely scratch an itch. The setting itself is as rich and detailed a character as anything else in the film. Much of this film only works because the time and place allow it to.
But for those looking for the next Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, or even Inglorious Basterds - they’ll be sorely disappointed.
Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is less an ambitious film and more a nostalgic, self-indulgent love letter written by a man who, given his previous successes - has name recognition, big studio dollars, and eager, big name actors at his disposal.
It’s not just a love letter, but a thank you letter as well. The era depicted in this film is the era that gave us Tarantino. The era of spaghetti westerns and low-budget b movies that a young Quentin feasted on during his days of working at a video rental store, only to draw inspiration from them as he became one of the greatest directors of his generation. This was a thank you to the old Hollywood - for without it, Quentin Tarantino wouldn’t be Quentin Tarantino.
If his next film really is his last - this film serves as a tying of loose ends, and brings cathartic closure for the director on his way out the door. It’s a film made by a man hoping to live happily ever after once the curtains close.