Review: DiCaprio and Pitt Give Glowing Star Turns in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Yeah, yeah, Game of Thrones just ate the world. But there’s really no better sign of television’s cultural dominance than the fact that Quentin Tarantino, the film loveriest film lover of them all, spends so much of his new movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, talking about TV. There’s plenty of film stuff in there too, but much of the reference-obsessed auteur’s latest is focused on the small screen. To be fair, he’s looking at old cowboy and cop shows from the 1950s and 60s, not our current glut of prestige programming, but this nonetheless marks an interesting—maybe telling?—shift for the director.

That said, Tarantino did get some bona fide A-list movie stars to ensure his film would make a splash at Cannes, where it premiered to packed houses on Tuesday evening. He’s turned to past company members Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, in their first on-screen pairing, to help him tell the meandering tale of fading TV (and some movies) star Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) and his trusty stuntman, chauffeur, and drinking buddy, Cliff Booth (Pitt). The film’s major asset is these two performances, both loose and funny and amiable. DiCaprio does strong character work, while Pitt gives off a mellow glow that feels like the true essence of Pitt—even though he’s done so many serious, laconic turns in his career. (Maybe this is Brad Pitt doing Matthew McConaughey?)

They have a beguiling chemistry. Rick and Cliff almost play as lovers—so tuned into each other, so happy just to be hangin’ out. Cliff consoles Rick’s career insecurities, while Rick takes Cliff along on his various TV shoots and other adventures. They’re a pair of pals content inside their own hazy bubble, Los Angeles sprawling around them like a hug. As they gambol along, they remain witlessly, blissfully unaware of the darkness creeping up toward them, until it’s staring them right in the face.

Rick has a house on Cielo Drive, which any Hollywood true-crime aficionado will recognize as the street where actress Sharon Tate lived when she and several friends were murdered by members of the Manson family. This is, in some senses, a movie about that sensational tragedy—but Tarantino only gets to that when he’s good and ready. And even then, he’s not terribly concerned with the real-life hows and whos and whys. Getting all granular and detailed like that would harsh Hollywood’s laid-back, discursive vibe.

What Tarantino really seems to want to do with the film is just talk about old stuff he likes. Which is nothing new for him—but here, those impulses are perhaps more unbridled than before. The director eschews plot for vignettes and asides, several of them long scenes of Rick filming a guest spot on a Western show. DiCaprio works himself into a brilliant lather in these moments, both when Rick is acting and when he’s back in his dressing room, heartbreakingly chastising himself for forgetting his lines. It’s exciting watching DiCaprio work in this register, all this emotional comedy in service of a richly and kindly realized character. But that’s all we’ve really got to hold onto as the film rambles, over the course of 160 minutes, to its perhaps inevitable end.

There were stretches during my screening when I was a little bored, even as I was tickled by Tarantino’s offbeat cadence, his commitment to specificity and idiosyncrasy. But it also felt like the movie wasn’t getting anywhere, amounting to a collection of shapeless set-pieces that verge on the indulgent. In Hollywood, the lack of real connective tissue is often more frustrating than it is charming.

I’ve been implored several times in letter form to not spoil any real plot particulars, a request I hope I’ve honored. I will say, though, that when the movie’s truly gnarly spate of violence happens, it’s both grimly cathartic and revolting, a brief, horrific riot of crunch and gush that comes across a bit too gleeful. It also, in its way, seems tacked-on, as if Tarantino felt he had to include some of the playfully gruesome in order to make up for all his nostalgia tripping. The violent jags did, rather guiltily, make me sit forward in my seat. At least something was really happening then, even if it was jarringly off-tone from the rest of the film’s unexpectedly sweet energy.

Throughout all that doubt, one’s allegiance to the film is consistently won back by DiCaprio and Pitt, who make easy, and disarmingly humble, platonic poetry out of this curious dynamic. (It should maybe also be noted that, at 55, Pitt looks remarkably good sans shirt.) Tarantino knows just what to do with their particular bearing, how to tease out the thing that made them icons and then send it bouncing around his movie.

He’s always been a great director of actors, and here he manages to wipe away some of the gunk of time and fame to find an indefinable It-ness that used to get people noticed at lunch counters. In so doing, Tarantino lets us access some of the love he so ardently wants us to feel for all his cherished arcana. This curious fairy tale may not be the truthRead More – Source

Vanity Fair