A truthy Tarantino film, with a little bit of fact and a lot of friction. 75+%

Rating: 8/10 (5 September 2019)

It might be an idea not to see this film with a knowledge about its subject matter because even though I avoided reading reviews about it, I did manage to pick up that it did deal with historical people and events. That affected how I related to this film. What might otherwise have seemed a meandering story about two people in the TV industry in Hollywood turned into a countdown (dates regularly are displayed on the screen) to when that known history would intersect with the (presumably) fictional characters who are the subject of the story (hence my slightly low score for it). It helped that my knowledge of these notorious historical figures and events was vague enough so as not to know when that coming together of fiction and history would happen. Perhaps most people would be in my position: the names of the historical figures ring a bell but the details of the events are forgotten or not even known.
With all that being said, the film centres on Rick Dalton (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), a fragile TV star and his stunt double, Cliff Booth (played by Brad Pitt), who is practically 'babysitting' him. Now, it struck me as being implausible that a TV star and their stunt double would socialise so much, let alone at all. However, this implausibility is addressed by the film and you just go with it and not overthink things. At times it seems that DiCaprio's acting is wooden, but that would just be more or less due to the character that he plays. His fragile ego is his shield, his sword. Or so I've heard. In some scenes Cliff Booth looks like the Marlboro Man, in others like Robert Redford. If you don't know about the historical references from the intersecting storyline, you would just take this film to be about the career ups and downs of Dalton and how that effects him. Speaking of historical references, there would be great nostalgia value for people who grew up watching film or TV especially, in the 1950s and 1960s, as you get many visual and audio grabs of popular US entertainment from that period as well as the popular music of this era.
At this point I haven't looked to see if Dalton is a real person (perhaps with a changed name) or a truthy version/amalgam of some real actor or actors. His roles in TV and film suggest to me that he might be based in part on some real Hollywood figure...someone who starred in Westerns...and then played such roles overseas, for a while. So, I was wondering if that real person might have actually lived where 'Dalton' lived...or somewhere nearby.
That question becomes more pronounced when Booth meets some people who I wondered if they were part of that intersecting story arc. In other words, I wondered if there really was a Cliff Booth type character involved in the historical event in question and whether he may have, in some sense, prompted that moment in history.
One character (an actress), mentions the kinds of films which she has been in, which seemed a salacious detail to have in the film. The Wikipedia article on her is too lengthy for me to quickly confirm that detail but so far I don't see anything to confirm it. If the detail is false, it does make you wonder about how writer, director and producer Quentin Tarantino is mixing fact and fiction in this film. Anyway, looking a bit further in the article, I can see, perhaps, a candidate for what film she was talking about. I'd just need to check her film chronology (assuming this film is accurate or that a filmography would include such a film) in order to confirm that.
For some people, I suppose, the heart of the matter is whether Tarantino is respecting the history of these real people and events. Maybe I shouldn't presume that Tarantino has done much research into the historical events that he portrays? For example, in one moment in the film, right towards the end, there is a scene which made me wonder whether Charlie was, in fact, responsible for the historical events. No, don't lookup "Charlie" if my reference has baffled you! In any case, that was an inference I made based on what a male character says to some women in a car with him. Does the real historical event allow for such an interpretation, as gleaned from this film by me?
In a more trivial vein, there were a couple of times where I wondered if Cliff Booth was imagining something. In the first instance, there is his encounter with a man who would become a major Asian star. It's not clear to me whether the event depicted actually happened (i.e. in the film) or whether he was imagining it. There is another scene, towards, the end, where I wondered the same thing and this relates to my previous point about whether Tarantino is respecting the history. That latter scene brought into stark relief how these two intersecting story arcs would play out. Which narrative would envelope the other and which would be enveloped? Even though I can say that I was maybe expecting the unexpected in this film's ending, well, I wasn't really expecting that ending! Maybe I just haven't seen enough Tarantino films or something! In some ways, this film reminds me of another Tarantino film...they have some things in common. In any case, I was okay with the ending. I'm not sure how anyone personally affected by the historical events of that time would feel about the ending though but it was a long time ago, in any case.
Miscellaneous notes:
* At least two Australians are in the cast, perhaps three, if you don't assume a good impression of our accent (wise! Based on a real person?)
* A stunning depiction of Cliff Booth's personal circumstances.
* I liked Rick Dalton's scene with a very young actress who took her craft more seriously than he did! She would also hate me referring to her as an "actress"! I didn't catch the name on her chair: based on a real person?
Recommendations:
* Tarantino is one of the interviewees in the documentary: "Not quite Hollywood: The wild, untold story of Ozploitation!"
* Summerfield. An Australian film that I've reviewed here. It has a similar vibe.