Once Upon A Time … In Hollywood Is A Nostalgic And Endearing Tribute To Movie Stars And The Sixties

Allow me to spare you hyperbole: Quentin Tarantino makes great fucking movies. 

• Jamie Mah @grahammah

Think Pulp Fiction, Inglourious Basterds, Kill Bill and Django Unchained as just a few of his masterpieces. He is by far one of the best directors alive as his talent to craft unique and genuine stories of which will entertain you for over two hours has no equal. His art is theatrical, endearing, hilarious and often poetic. His actors pull you in and leave you deliriously charmed by their sensibilities. Christoph Waltz anyone? We’ve seen him do this for over 25 years as everyone of his films leaves you insatiably wanting more. 

Having just seen his latest, my mind is still wishing the film hadn’t ended. Far from being his most intense film (Django) or his most ambitious (Inglourious), Once Upon A Time brings forth a new chapter for the director, as the film is a tour de force reckoning with Hollywood and it’s most sought after past, the sixties. 

Led by the star studded duo of Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, we see the two movie stars shine like we’ve never seen them before. This is by far one of Leonardo’s best performances, as he brings to life one of his most sensitive and unguarded characters, washed up actor Rick Dalton. With an emotional heartbeat you seldom see from him, safe for maybe The Departed, Dicaprio delivers a fearlessness to taking chances as he showcases the highs and lows of a man on his last legs in show business. It’s in his struggle to remain relevant that you see him come to terms with his time and life on screen and it’s heartbreaking to witness his acceptance of reality and the tide that comes for all actors, specifically those of this era, that to stay on top, one must lose their vanity, as it’s this part of one’s ego which prevents the performer to surrender to their role — even in the presence of ridicule and vulnerability. For Rick Dalton, leaving the US for spaghetti westerns in Italy is of this nature as it forces him to flex his talent in a way he hasn’t ever. A young eight year old actress even confirms as much. With Leo at the helm, the ride is fantastic to witness. 

Brad Pitt on the other hand, plays the everyman movie star that he is as he showcases a coolness only he can bring. His character, Cliff Booth (Dalton’s stunt double), is a man whose as loyal to Dalton as his dog is to him while being plenty more charming than Bruce Lee ever could be. Similar to how he owned every scene in Ocean’s 11, Pitt’s command of the film’s overall tone only highlights how much he was born to play men who are outsiders with verve and charisma. I often found myself wondering how, at 55, he can still make you ponder what it must be like to still have every woman alive in love with you while every man wants to be you. It’s a skill some desire, yet never attain, as his is the gift of A list superstar. 

The irony of both the Dalton and Booth characters you immediately recognize is that both Dicaprio and Pitt are in some way playing off their real life careers of sorts, which in of itself gives their performances that much more nuance. Leo is at an age (he’s 44) in his life where leading men tend to often fade away (ie. Will Smith) and in playing a character whose going through a crisis that most actors often face, it’s uncanny to see him go through a spiral of emotions that he’ll possibly never face. He does it so effectively, part of you wonders if he chose to play this role just so he’d know what it might feel like if he were to ever be in this position. I doubt it was, but it is nevertheless, intriguing to watch. 

Pitt’s Booth on the other hand is washed up and has very little use within the movie ranks as a stunt double at this point in his career, and as such, we find him mostly driving his way across Los Angeles as a too handsome for his own good chauffeur. His escapades lead him to the Manson ranch as even hippies can’t shake his smile. Which when looked at with a bit of perspective, Booth’s irrelevance harkens to Pitt’s long battle with his overtly striking good looks and how they’re fading, something he’s even come out and decried that “I really believe that overall it’s a younger man’s game — not that there aren’t substantial parts for older characters — I just feel, the game itself, it’ll move on naturally. There will be a natural selection to it all.” For Pitt, playing Booth probably felt as natural as it does his eating in every movie he makes. 

On the whole, however the film posits itself during a time when Hollywood was changing, and with the brutal death of Tate at the centre of this upheaval, Tarantino has found a way to showcase a narrative in which actors who’ve done their jobs for years now find themselves feeling lost when the rug starts to come out from underneath them. With bit pop ups from the likes of Al Pacino, Michael Madsen, Damien Lewis (as Steve McQueen) and to a larger extend Margot Robbie as Tate, the film exists primarily as a flex for both Leo and Brad as each navigates through a time when making movies seemed as ludicrous as smoking an acid dipped cigarette or having a flamethrower in your garage. Only Tarantino could make a film like this and in every sense of the phrase: I loved every minute of it. 

This is one of his best and I highly recommend it.