Who needs a plot?

Rating: 7/10 (26 July 2019)

There was only one movie last year that left me with such mixed feelings and that was the Suspiria re-imagining. Prior to that, and now this, I can't remember the last time I felt so 50/50 on a film. These are rare cases.
I imagine this will be the most polarizing film of 2019 - to me, I feel like it's designed to be.
First, the positive: It's very hard not to be entertained by the acting chops of both Brad Pitt and The Nardo. They bring it as hard as they always do, and their characters offer just enough to separate themselves from the rest of these guys' back catalogue. These two manage to take what is basically "not a movie", carry it, and keep it thoroughly entertaining. Pitt's character was my favorite, and just got better and better as the movie played out. Tarantino clearly put a lot of thought into the set pieces and design, and some of the editing, to really transport back to that 1969 vibe - it's effective and usually a lot of fun. All Spahn Ranch-affiliated characters were the most exciting part of the film, specifically one prolonged sequence that occurs at the ranch itself. That was just about the ONLY scene in the movie that provided any real tension or "purpose". Finally, some things occur in the final act that are undeniably satisfying and electrically entertaining - this scores the film a bit of redemption, but 10 minutes cannot save a 160 minute experience alone.
Then, the not so positive: first and foremost, there is no plot. Yeah, an aging actor is insecure that his career is starting to tank... but, most scenes have little to nothing to do with that, and there is literally no other conflict in the entire movie. And it's not some surrealist, abstract, atmosphere-driven experience...it's just meandering, throughout. Still entertaining the whole time, just...meandering. Next, Margot Robbie may as well not be in the movie at all. She has maybe 5 or 6 lines, across maybe 4 scenes, and her longest scenes are, in my opinion, some of the most purposeless and ineffective scenes in the entire movie (her watching her own movies in a theater, alone, for a long time?). Kind of a bummer when you have someone as talented and beautiful as Margot Robbie, playing someone as legendary as Sharon Tate, and you get just about nothing from it. Next, there is NO reason for this movie to be 160 minutes long. We don't need 3-minute establishing shots, watching people drive cars from one place to another, as the intro to EVERY scene, especially when what we're prefacing are scenes like Brad Pitt getting up on the roof to fix an antenna in real time... for no reason. It reminded me of the panning shots of San Fransisco in The Room or of the creek in A Talking Cat?! - you could cut out a solid half hour of establishing shots and unnecessary long shots and you'd still have the exact same (plotless) movie. I could go on.
I certainly consider myself a huge Tarantino fan. The Hateful Eight was the first movie of his that I did not enjoy. This was an odd one, and overall I would say that I liked it, but I can't imagine having this script and being like "okay! That's it!" - we have all the money, all the power, and all the A-listers to do WHATEVER we want with this movie, but THIS is what we're gonna do! Perhaps though, that is exactly what's going to make this special in the long run.