Tarantino’s latest hits movie theaters
For filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, no truer love exists than one man's love for the cinema. In his new film, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” the writer-director establishes a platonic bond nearly as strong between a fictional actor named Rick Dalton, known primarily for Westerns, and fictional stunt double Cliff Booth, who is also Dalton's driver, assistant and handyman. The stunt man resides with his dog in a trailer behind a drive-in in Van Nuys, Calif.; Dalton lives in Benedict Canyon, next door to director Roman Polanski and his pregnant wife, the actress Sharon Tate.
The year is 1969. Dalton's glory days — he came to stardom on a TV series called “Bounty Law” — have fallen away to insecurity, alcohol and a general, multidirectional disdain for hippie culture and the so-called New Hollywood. Where does he fit in?
It's Booth, played by Brad Pitt, not Dalton, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who exudes confidence and skill. Booth exists within a bubble of old-school glamour as well as freedom from doubt, fear or hippies. He's the real object of Tarantino's man-crush in his extravagant, lavishly detailed fairy tale that intersects at various key points with Charles Manson's “family,” the strung-out sirens wandering around the George Spahn ranch in rural Chatsworth. This is where Booth and Dalton worked on “Bounty Law.” Portents of doom, Manson's wrecking crew lies in wait, ready for their close-up, and for a fateful trip to 10050 Cielo Drive.
Part trivia contest, part alternate universe fable and part triumph of cinematic atmosphere, the movie owes a lot to Barbara Ling's mouth-watering production design. Tarantino's enjoyment of period re-creation on a grand scale pays some wondrous dividends. At dusk, in one sweet, quick montage, famous neon signage all over Hollywood comes to life.
At heart, Tarantino's a movie-besotted pastiche artist, recycling the movies he fell for in his adolescence. He's a thrill-seeking Peter Pan, with no interest in growing up. This is a boys' club movie starring DiCaprio, who has worked out a shrewd set of character “tells” and details (a slight stammer, a glimmer of panic in the eyes when he's imploding with self-loathing). Pitt, at 55 DiCaprio's senior by 11 years, keeps things close to the chest, relaxing into a project requiring mainly what the studio publicists used to call “It.” And Pitt still has It, along with It's frequent costar, Abs.
Cleverly, Tarantino twirls the fictional material plausibly around the facts and eerie inhabitants of the Spahn ranch, and the otherworldly, zonkedout denizens of the Manson family. The movie can't be bothered to fully characterize any of the females on screen, including Robbie's Sharon Tate. That's a serious drawback. So is the climax, which goes whole hog with wishful dramatic thinking. Some will love it; I found it sort of cheap and more than a little exploitative. It's “fun,” which tastes wrong. The results? More evocative than provocative. But evocative is not nothing.