Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood (2019)
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Quentin Tarantino's love letter to Hollywood, Once Upon A Time ... In Hollywood is unlike most movies we watch today. Given the endless supply of mindless superhero movies and remakes and reboots of old movies, this can be a blessing. As evident by the multiple awards and nominations currently received, it would seem Quentin Tarantino has struck gold once again with his quirky and unorthodox style.
This time, Quentin has left his trademark violence and bloody vision for a more down to earth tale of a failing super star (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his side kick stunt double (Brad Pitt) set during the late 1960's and early 1970's. Using Hollywood as the backdrop offers Quentin the liberty of mixing fictitious as well as real life people in what is basically a modern day fairy tale for adults. I use the word "fairy tale" here because of what the title has hinted as well as the blatant distortion of facts regarding real people and real events that were played out in the story. Actress Sharon Tate is featured strongly in this story although her character has no direct involvement with the main storyline and characters. Her tragic background story is given a twist here firmly establishing the "fairy tale" approach. A cameo of Bruce Lee was not well received by some people as he is portrayed as arrogant and light headed. But given that this is afterall a "fairy tale" I should think people should not get too upset over this as nobody is claiming anything here is real or actually happened. There were also a lot of opportunities to use old TV programmes and movies cleverly edited with new footages to make it seem as if the stars were acting along side the original films.
If I have to gripe, then I have to admit that I did not really appreciate Quentin's style of having differing narrative styles and the seemingly isolated scenes and characters that could easily have been edited out without affecting the overall story. This to me is probably the main reason why the film ended up with a bloated running time of 2 hours 41 minutes! Nevertheless I managed to watch this in one sitting without dozing off. Quentin Tarantino has a flair of writing and directing things which nobody can think of and also the ability to attract super stars to his projects and make them look great. Getting Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio together is a genius feat and giving them meaty roles to play is an even more appreciative gift to the movie loving public. I do wonder why Brad Pitt seems to be getting the larger share of attention and recognition in his role as evident by his recent win in the Golden Globes, while it was Leonardo DiCaprio who stood out more with his amazing performance of the insecure aging superstar. To give the two actors better chance of winning the acting awards, Hollywood "cheated"by proclaiming Brad Pitt in the Best Supporting Actor category while Leonardo Diprio is under the Best Actor category. This is a joke since both actors share more or less the same screen time together in the film and were both basically the leading actors for the movie. Such is the way things are done in La La Land hence, a reflection of how totally relevant this modern day fairy tale is on the fantasy world that Hollywood (and America in general) can sometimes be.
One person whom I thought should have received more recognition and whose brief appearance in the movie was best supporting worthy is young 10 year old Julia Butters who plays a wise cracking worldly child actor that has a wonderful exchange of dialogue with DiCaprio about acting! If she choses to continue acting as a career, then this is one person to look out for when she grows into more matured roles in the future.
All in all this may not be Quentin Tarantino's best work and definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but it is without doubt a Tarantino treat and feels like a breath of fresh air over the onslaught of lesser works in today's cinema.
This time, Quentin has left his trademark violence and bloody vision for a more down to earth tale of a failing super star (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his side kick stunt double (Brad Pitt) set during the late 1960's and early 1970's. Using Hollywood as the backdrop offers Quentin the liberty of mixing fictitious as well as real life people in what is basically a modern day fairy tale for adults. I use the word "fairy tale" here because of what the title has hinted as well as the blatant distortion of facts regarding real people and real events that were played out in the story. Actress Sharon Tate is featured strongly in this story although her character has no direct involvement with the main storyline and characters. Her tragic background story is given a twist here firmly establishing the "fairy tale" approach. A cameo of Bruce Lee was not well received by some people as he is portrayed as arrogant and light headed. But given that this is afterall a "fairy tale" I should think people should not get too upset over this as nobody is claiming anything here is real or actually happened. There were also a lot of opportunities to use old TV programmes and movies cleverly edited with new footages to make it seem as if the stars were acting along side the original films.
If I have to gripe, then I have to admit that I did not really appreciate Quentin's style of having differing narrative styles and the seemingly isolated scenes and characters that could easily have been edited out without affecting the overall story. This to me is probably the main reason why the film ended up with a bloated running time of 2 hours 41 minutes! Nevertheless I managed to watch this in one sitting without dozing off. Quentin Tarantino has a flair of writing and directing things which nobody can think of and also the ability to attract super stars to his projects and make them look great. Getting Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio together is a genius feat and giving them meaty roles to play is an even more appreciative gift to the movie loving public. I do wonder why Brad Pitt seems to be getting the larger share of attention and recognition in his role as evident by his recent win in the Golden Globes, while it was Leonardo DiCaprio who stood out more with his amazing performance of the insecure aging superstar. To give the two actors better chance of winning the acting awards, Hollywood "cheated"by proclaiming Brad Pitt in the Best Supporting Actor category while Leonardo Diprio is under the Best Actor category. This is a joke since both actors share more or less the same screen time together in the film and were both basically the leading actors for the movie. Such is the way things are done in La La Land hence, a reflection of how totally relevant this modern day fairy tale is on the fantasy world that Hollywood (and America in general) can sometimes be.
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| Young actor Julia Butters with director / writer Quentin Tarantino |
One person whom I thought should have received more recognition and whose brief appearance in the movie was best supporting worthy is young 10 year old Julia Butters who plays a wise cracking worldly child actor that has a wonderful exchange of dialogue with DiCaprio about acting! If she choses to continue acting as a career, then this is one person to look out for when she grows into more matured roles in the future.
All in all this may not be Quentin Tarantino's best work and definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but it is without doubt a Tarantino treat and feels like a breath of fresh air over the onslaught of lesser works in today's cinema.
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