Once Upon A Time.... in Hollywood, the ninth film from Quentin Tarantino, transports us to 1960s Hollywood: a tipping point in the movie capital teetering between the stars of yesteryear and the dazzling up-and-comers reshaping the industry. Tarantino has always had a knack of attracting a prestigious cast and the names are just as impressive here: his frequent collaborators Leonardo Dicaprio and Brad Pitt are joined by Margot Robbie, with the likes of Margaret Qualley, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern and Al Pacino also featuring in the starry ensemble.
As Rick Dalton's star power fades, his stunt double, Cliff Booth, similarly struggles for work: victims of an evolving Hollywood. Meanwhile, star-on-the-rise, doe-eyed Sharon Tate represents new life in Tinseltown. Beneath the glitz and glamour of both though, a sinister threat lurks in the background in the form of Charles Manson's killer cult "family".
This review will contain spoilers.
Very much in the same vein as Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, Hollywood is a revisionist drama that builds a fictionalised version of events around a monumental true story and period in history. 1969 was right at the centre of a landmark era for Hollywood, with the brutal murder of Sharon Tate at the hand of Charles Manson's killer followers occurring during a time of real change. The beauty of this for a writer of Tarantino's stature within the industry - who else could get $90+ million for a 2.5 hour, r-rated passion project greenlit? - is the possibility to literally rewrite history, with this particular story rife with cathartic opportunities to "fix" one of the most shocking and harrowing murders in history, in a way that only art and imagination could.
Except, unsurprisingly but nevertheless disappointingly, Mr Tarantino only knows how to make art for himself, summarised no more than by the number of dirty feet contained and on display within this damn movie. Wasting his unique privilege by indulging in his own egotistical, hedonistic filmmaking quirks, he delivers a film entirely based around his own self-importance; Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood lands on the most ill-advised and tasteless re-interpretation of this story one could possibly imagine, robbing a woman's story, stripping her character of any agency and handing the reigns to two fictionised males heroes. The late Sharon Tate is treated as an accessory to her own story and proves that the hypothesis regarding Tarantino's lazy handling of his female characters is very, very much true. And to make matters worse? It's exhaustingly dull, too.
As a director, it's not as if the man is incapable of producing an impressive shot or two, no matter how much you find his personal indulgence overwhelms almost every film he has ever made. There are some technically impressive elements to the films - one shot at the very tail-end of the film as we proceed up a driveway initiates what could've been a stinger of a close, before becoming abundantly clear once and for all that the film was never about giving Tate her justice but providing the two male leads with their "happy endings": Rick Dalton's being... a revived career. The film's almost nine-digit production budget is put to great visual use at every turn, with the sets and costumes, in particular, immersing you in "old Hollywood" better than anything else the film manages.
Needlessly padded with pointless asides that only seek to make that 161-minute runtime feel double that, Tarantino proves that he is unable to restrain himself; he laces extensive sequence from various television shows throughout because he can, not because he should or it serves the film with any real purpose. Almost every single scene overstays its welcome considerably, and the subplots of the story fail to coalesce in a way that ever satisfies; in fact, the character of Sharon Tate need not exist in ... Hollywood, particularly troubling given that it is, indeed, her story that is being told - or at least the one the film is supposedly based around. With so little connectivity tissue to the plot strands than the lightly comedic and slightly melancholic rise and fall of Rick Dalton, the 'day in the life of... Sharon Tate' adventure where she goes to the cinema barefoot and doesn't pay to see a film she stars in, and the wife-murdering redemption of Cliff Booth, Hollywood never amounts to anything better than a sum of its boring parts - and it's often significantly worse.
Speaking of the character of Cliff Booth, that storyline is perhaps the most abhorrent in the entire feature. Depicting Booth early on as damaged goods due to the rumour that he killed his wife on a boating trip and then proceeding to give him a redemption arc reeks of the foulest form of misogyny Tarantino has put on screen - a statement which in itself truly speaks volumes. Some may argue that there was no real confirmation that he did shoot her (despite a scene, played for laughs, in which the barrel of the gun is pointed directly at his 'whiney' wife, while also invoking the name of Natalie Wood, who was similarly killed in a boating trip which cast suspicion onto her husband), the alternative suggestion is hardly comforting either: that false allegations can destroy a man's career and should be dismissed without concrete proof. This would feel problematic at the best of times, but in the #MeToo and Time's Up landscape, it's terribly misjudged and distasteful, dangerously suggesting that we should require difficult-to-substantiate evidence before a man faces condemnation. There's not a positive way to read this most easy-to-rectify narrative beat and its inclusion is regunant.
We may not see the gunshot that killed Cliff Booth's wife, but it doesn't mean the film skimps on its violent outburst - especially towards the women of the film. There is a discussion to be had regarding Charles Manson's followers themselves being victims of his regime of hatred and vitriol, but that perhaps deserves its own, more comprehensive conversation at a later stage; instead, we'll speak more directly about the level of brutality committed towards each of the three Manson family members in its final act. Tex, the sole male of the trio, receives a punishment directed straight at his manhood - a dog mauls his genitals - which is played comedically, tonally. The retribution against the women, however, is far more sinister; one is burnt to a crisp by a flamethrower after a hysterical and manic outburst, while another is battered by a tin of dog food and repeatedly smacked to a bloody pulp against any hard surface insight. The polarity in the violence directed towards the men and women of this film is nothing short of disturbing and, combined with the film's other odious behaviour towards women throughout, makes it all the more despicable.
That Hollywood neglects to actually hold Manson himself accountable for spreading the toxicity that brainwashed a legion of (mostly young, drugged-up and female) followers to commit these atrocious acts is extremely questionable. He is reduced to what likely totals no more than a minute worth of screentime but that Hollywood, in all of its unrestrained, creatively-free and well-financed glory, didn't go straight after the man responsible for a horrendous reign of terror is utterly baffling on its own, and symbolic of the deeper issues found throughout the film concerning its resistance in condemning its male characters on a wider level. Just imagine the catharsis of Sharon Tate landing a fatal blow in the finale, not only registering a purgative release by avenging Charles Manson for his real-life acts but providing Sharon with some much-needed agency, too. It's difficult to imagine anyone approaching this tale not writing an ending in which Manson meets a savage end -- and because it didn't here, in a film with so many resources at its disposal, we have to question why.
Tarantino has always managed to attract the highest-calibre of actors - but the award chatter surrounding these actors genuinely baffles me. Rick Dalton is proof that Tarantino cannot write male emotion well, with what would be a genuinely interesting tale of a man coming to terms with his diminishing credibility and era of change never given the sincerity or depth to make this a wholly believable, empathetic character. Dalton is treated as glorified comedic relief, and while Leonardo Dicaprio handles it solidly, it's no more impressive than a handful of the strongest 'funny' performances that are so frequently overlooked by award bodies.
If Brad Pitt steals the movie as so many have proclaimed, the doors must have been left open, the safety tags nonexistent and the security guard's back turned because while the character no doubt leaves an impression, however loathsome it is, it's truly difficult to say the same about Pitt. Even now, reflecting on what currently sounds like a Best Supporting Actor lock, it's perplexing me as to how we have come to that conclusion: the jokes appear written before the scene and Pitt never convinces otherwise, with the character seemingly tailor-designed for the face of 'cool, suave guy' - most concerning given the fact that he almost certainly murdered his wife. Pitt does what he needs to do and little more - what am I missing here?
Poor Margot Robbie is clutching at straws so valiantly in an attempt to imbue Tate with complexity; there is an emotional response that the audience holds towards her, but it stems mostly from what we know about Tate herself, rather than anything the film itself earns. Her scenes are frequent highlights, as even with her feet inexplicably on parade in every other frame, Robbie is a magnetic presence. It's a crying shame that she's not dealing with a character written with any layers or nuance; no matter how hard she tries, it's hard to be leagues better than the script you are stranded with.
Hollywood's screenplay has been frequently been heralded as a "love letter to Hollywood", but the biggest infatuation, outside the one for himself, is the one Tarantino has for his male characters - very likely representing an extension of himself - at the cost of everyone else, and everything else the film does (and should) attempt. Fuelled by a false nostalgia that feels disingenuous given the film's proclivity towards television, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is a handful of bad, sexist and distasteful elements that adds up to form something more insidiously bad, sexist and distasteful as a whole.
Quentin Tarantino and I have never gotten on well and I've made no attempt to hide it. Of his previous eight features (nine if you consider Kill Bill two films, as you should), there is one that I'd describe to as great (Inglorious Basterds) and another that is good (Django Unchained). With all due respect to this otherwise universally-heralded man, his gaudy style and egotistical filmmaking has never been to my taste. But I believe in myself enough to understand when something doesn't work for me personally, and when something is genuinely bad, offensive and unpleasant filmmaking. Once Upon A Time in Hollywood unequivocally falls into that latter category in my eyes.
The crux of the matter is this: Sharon Tate is treated as an accessory to her own story, a lazily-written "character" presented without agency or the need to exist outside of the need to forward the fictionalised men's stories. Said male characters aren't written or presented with the depth to make their arcs satisfying or to justify the decision to make Tate a footnote in her own history. The film's treatment of its female characters, most specifically the violence inflicted upon them, is deeply sexist and troubling more widely which, combined with a reluctance to chastise the ringleader of the cult who spawned such violence, and the way it presents a possible wife murderer, brings to the surface so many uncomfortable questions that are being inexplicably ignored.
The only reason Once Upon A Time... in Hollywood isn't getting the vehement reaction it deserves is because Quentin Tarantino's name is above the title and the sooner we have that conversation, the better. Once Upon A Time... in Hollywood is a nightmare and not one I'll likely escape soon.
The only reason Once Upon A Time... in Hollywood isn't getting the vehement reaction it deserves is because Quentin Tarantino's name is above the title and the sooner we have that conversation, the better. Once Upon A Time... in Hollywood is a nightmare and not one I'll likely escape soon.