Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Review

When you're doing a film related college course Tarantino is an inescapable name. Half of the class want to be him. The other half struggle to see the substance underneath the style. Then there's one kid who has some kind of Tarantino shrine in their house complete with film posters, art books and a wall of katana swords.

In short Tarantino is kind of the marmite of hollywood right now (not that the internet has much of a buffer zone between love and hate anyway) and his latest film seems to be pushing discussions about his work to new extremes possibly because on the surface, this doesn't feel like a very typical Tarantino film... until you watch it and realise it couldn't get more Tarantinoesque if it had a yellow jumpsuit wearing Uma Thurman katana fighting Brad Pitt instead of Bruce Lee... I have some feelings about that scene... we'll get back to it...

I realise that a normal review isn't really adequate for a film which has been so talked about already so instead I'm going to frame it more around to what extent Once Upon a Time is a Tarantino film and in what ways that works for and against it.

1. Meet the cowboys

Our two main characters are Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Rick is an actor slowly watching the decline of his career, his leading man days being replaced by guest spots on network TV which often result in his characters defeat. Cliff is his stuntman, his career taking an even more dramatic fall from stuntman to handyman as he shofers Rick around, does the housework and repairs what needs repairing. The two are (as the film puts it) a little more than friends but little less than a wife which I think is the best way to describe their friendship. Throughout the film I had absolutely no doubt that these two people were best friends, practically joined at the hip.

Their chemistry is aided greatly by DiCaprio and Pitt's performances. DiCaprio plays Dalton as a highly strung nervous wreck who holds himself to the impossible standard of his own youth. He's sensitive to both praise and criticism and is comically self deprecating of his own performances. Booth on the other hand is his opposite. A chilled out loner who feels no pressure in life. His laid back attitude is perfectly juxtaposed with the knowledge he murdered his wife. A brilliant little nugget of backstory which completely changes the way you see the character from scene to scene.

One of the staples of Tarantino's work is his dialogue and that shines through wonderfully with these two characters. The beauty of his dialogue is it never looks like an effort to say. It's conversational, sometimes even nonsensical as real dialogue often is and flows as a result.

2. Where's the structure gone?

Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Bastards, Kill Bill. All these films adhere to a tight if unconventional structure. The tightest being Pulp Fiction in order for its circular narrative to run seamlessly. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood might just be the loosest structure of any Tarantino film I've ever scene. For the first hour and a half the film seems to be meandering towards not a lot. Lots of car journeys with the radio changing from one 60's hit to the next every five seconds in a soundtrack that would make Guardians of the Galaxy blush. I wasn't bored by it but this feels like a much more relaxed Tarantino film. A Tarantino film that says "Yes we are giving you over an hour of character development that means very little in the long run, and you are going to enjoy it!"

I did enjoy it but not without a fair amount of confusion. I thought this film was going to be about the Manson murders and Sharon Tate. In reality the story is actually about a man coming to terms with the twilight of his career and the end of a friendship around the same time as the Manson murders and just so happens to live next to Sharon Tate. These are not the active characters we have come to know from Tarantino. They're passive, things happen to them and around them. Their "Call to action" as it were only happens at the very end of the film when they are forced to violence when the Manson cultists break in in an attempt to murder them. The film only has as much structure as their lives have which is an interesting way to write a script and a brave way to film a movie. In-fact I'd go as far to say only somebody with Tarantino's ear for dialogue could pull it off.

3. Cake and Controversy

So... this film has come under fire mainly for two reasons. Firstly the way Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) is portrayed and a bizarre scene starring Bruce Lee (Mike Moh). It isn't the first time Tarantino has blended real life with fantasy. In Inglorious Bastards he famously killed Hitler but there is something so strange about using real people in this way.

On the one hand this film is in no way attempting to be a documentary. It's a work of fiction so there is the argument that the stereotypes and caricatures of these real life characters is in no way meant to represent who they really are.

On the other hand making that seperation in your head is pretty tricky. Sharon Tate was murdered. Bruce Lee was not a stereotype and was in no way a violent man.

I find it hard to fully agree with the controversy mostly because the scenes with these characters are so small and without Sharon Tate the point of the film would be lost. The film has impact because of the audience's knowledge of history and sure her character is a bit of a dumb blonde stereotype but we spend so little time with her that setting up any complexity within her character would have made for a convoluted script. I don't see her character as lazy sexism I see it more as story driven stereotyping. The Bruce Lee controversy I understand more since his portrayal is more damaging and doesn't seem to have as much purpose. Tarantino is infamous for playing around with Asian culture in his films often mixing Chinese and Japanese stereotypes for "asthetic".

Basically with these representations Tarantino is trying to have his cake and eat it. Unsettle the audience with their own knowledge while also playing stereotypes for comic relief but it's fiction so it's fine... part of it doesn't sit well with me but I think in the long run it's relatively harmless.

4. Final Verdict

So overall Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has the violence, dialogue and controversy of a Tarantino film. What makes it different is the way we watch it. The characters are passive and therefore the audience has to be more active to piece together its meaning. This is a film of reactions. Reactions to friendship, criticism, praise and how the environment we live in affects our lives, the hollywood landscape as important an element as the two leads.

Overall an impressive and enjoyable film if not laced with Tarantino's signature weirdness.

7/10