A different experience for those that didn't know the history of Sharon Tate

Rating: 8/10 (17 June 2020)

To start this, I would like to say that I am not American. I have heard of the name Charles Manson and knew that he was a cult leader but that was it. Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Spahn Ranch. These are all unfamiliar names to me. When I was watching the movie, not once did I make the connection that the "Charlie" they were referring to was Charles Manson. My sister who watched the movie with me called the ranch hippies the Coachella Cult which I thought was quite befitting. Precisely because of my unfamiliarity with the history of Charles Manson and Sharon Tate, my experience with the movie was significantly different from those that did.
For me, the movie was surrounding the has-been actor Rick Dalton and his best friend Cliff Booth. They are the focus and that's where the plot was. Up until I finished the movie and read about it, I was frankly confused about why the storyline of Sharon Tate existed in the movie. Her scenes were plotless and because of my unfamiliarity, I thought she added little to the story. I was convinced that hers and Polanski's existence was simply to juxtapose Rick and that the storyline would have been fine without her. Not knowing the history, I wasn't aware that the movie was proposing an alternative reality.
Yet, precisely because I didn't know, I didn't make assumptions. For those that are familiar with what happened, they expected the climax to be the murder of Sharon Tate and her guests by the Manson family. This reminded me of Quentin Tarantino's other movie, Inglorious Basterds. When I was watching it, I was so sure that the US soldiers were going to fail because after all, we know how WW2 ended and that was not it. More often than not, we make assumptions about the ending of the movie because we have the benefit of hindsight of knowing history. Yet, Quentin Tarantino has proven time after time that movies do not need to follow the law of time. And because of my not knowing, I had a fresh view of the movie with no expectations of where it had to go and made no assumptions where it was to go.