Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

rating: ****

the story: A former TV star's bid for career resurrection intertwines with the life of Sharon Tate.

review: A week after seeing it I'm still processing Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.  Sometimes I'm instantly in love with a Quentin Tarantino film (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained), other times I'm not sure how devoted I'll be (Jackie Brown, Hateful Eight, even Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs).  The two-volume Kill Bill is sort of in-between, although the second one is closer to instant love.

But of all his movies, Once Upon...is probably closest to Jackie Brown, which was Tarantino's first taste of languid, of just letting his filmmaking speak for itself rather than splashy violence (Reservoir Dogs) or splashy stars (Pulp Fiction) do the talking (along with the characters, naturally).  Once Upon takes its tone from Margot Robbie's Sharon Tate, who today is best known for being horribly murdered at the behest of Charles Manson.  Tarantino has stated that he wanted Tate to exist apart from that narrative.  In fact, Once Upon... becomes his second film, after Inglourious Basterds, to deliberately rewrite history, in allowing Tate to avoid her fate, and it's in that regard that the film reaches its highest note and possibly the note on which the entire movie will ultimately be judged.

But Robbie's Tate isn't really the star of the movie.  That honor falls to Leonardo DiCaprio, who's featured as the former TV star, a fictional character, who has been struggling to find meaningful roles.  His TV show was a western, and by the time we catch up with him he's being cast in his latest guest spot in another one, and as Tarantino presents it the material becomes a movie-within-a-movie, something I wish he'd done with Django Unchained (as a flashback-of-sorts for the Brunhilda myth), which for some viewers might be a needless tangent, but it helps put the character in context, how he views himself, and thus how everything would turn out for all the characters if we followed their narratives equally.  Metaphorically, you understand.

Just below DiCaprio is Brad Pitt playing his former stunt double, now personal assistant.  After, oh, about a decade of sliding toward irrelevance and being best known for his relationship with Angelina Jolie, Pitt's performance in Once Upon... is almost akin to Travolta in Pulp Fiction, a giant reminder of his considerable talents, the full impact of his charismatic screen presence.  He's got the best scene, too, a fight with Bruce Lee that becomes better as it builds, which is interesting for Tarantino, who usually accomplishes the bulk of his work with words.  It's another subtle evolution of his filmmaking mastery.

Among the supporting players are Al Pacino (allowing himself a rare character role), Bruce Dern, and Kurt Russell, who's probably in the best sweet spot of his career (previewed, in some ways, by Death Proof, with a great spotlight in Hateful Eight).

But the ending is the real selling point.  As I said, Tarantino allows Sharon Tate to cheat fate.  In doing so, he probably allows Tate's husband, at the time of her death, Roman Polanski a reboot as well.  Polanski at one time was known simply as a brilliant director.  He was just coming off his breakthrough film, Rosemary's Baby, at the time, and would later direct Chinatown and The Pianist, but his career was forever tarnished by a rape charge he chose exile from America to avoid prosecution over.  Is it reasonable to assume Tate's death played a role in the sequence of events that led to this fate?  Is Tarantino saving two lives here?  That's how I choose to view it, anyway.

Giving Tate the focus, rather than Charles Manson, is itself a noteworthy choice on Tarantino's part.  It takes the power away from Manson, who entered virtual cultural immortality as the result of ordering Tate's murder, and Tate herself became just a name.  In effect, Tarantino is addressing two major sins, and offering a chance at correction, that've haunted Hollywood for fifty years, which is noteworthy in and of itself at a time when Hollywood has been playing a moral authority.  Is it a direct criticism?  Will Hollywood even care, come the Oscars next year, or merely be flattered, as it tends to be, when presented as subject matter?  If it gives Tarantino his long-deserved Academy recognition, all the better.

Perhaps, in time, I'll better understand how much I appreciate this one.  For now I'll be a little cautious.  But like all Tarantino's movies, it won't be easy to forget.  Not by a long shot.  Yeah....