Constrained Tarantino delivers a sad romantic story

Rating: 8/10 (30 March 2020)

To begin with, I am not a huge late-stage QT fan. Pulp Fiction is a stunning movie. Reservoir Dogs was taut and original, True Romance (story) was fun, Jackie Brown was well directed.
But after Pulp, Tarantino became self-aware, silly, trite, surreal and pompous....laughing at all of you who don't get the point...it is just Pulp Fiction. He delivered a series of nonsensical empty over the top vacuity. The schmucks thought they were in on the joke laughing at Sam Jackson's over acting, all the FU's and N-bombs and the outrageous stomping of Nazis and racists. It was intentionally empty-garbage - Pulp Fiction to entertain a mass of dopes. QT was laughing at you buying it and saying it was genius.
But then you get this movie. Instead of a fantasy land of WWII or Slavery, we are in something very real to Tarantino....the Hollywood of films, stars, moguls, wealth, beauty that he obviously immersed himself in for his entire life, from his days as a video store clerk and down on to today.
That really constrained his urge to go over the top for the first two hours of this movie. Now, he rammed the music down your throat, over and over with song after song after song from the era...right down to cliched psychedelic music for the Manson girls, etc. Got old. Now, he over did some scenes that showed who Rick Dalton (Leo) was by making entire little 'movies' within his movie, that could have tightened the whole thing up by simply using editing and inference. But all that is forgivable excess relative to his last three films.
What we have is a B-list TV star (I thought of Richard Boone as a prototype, or think a Clint Eastwood who never made it out of TV). He had a TV series in the 1950s, by the 1960's he is fading and doing guest star roles as the bad guy in shows like The Green Hornet and The FBI. We see his high points and low points, scene by scene. His buddy is his long time Stunt Double, Cliff, who can't find work any longer because he is an easy going loose cannon that doesn't back down when challenged, and accepts fate as it comes his way.
These two guys are trying to figure out what is next in their lives. One sweating it, one shrugging it off. They are in Hollywood and they interface with a horrible piece of reality. Rick lives next door to a big mansion being rented out by Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate. (A List Hollywood). Cliff (Pitt), the stunt double, by luck and fate meets a nymphet Manson girl.
That is the whole story. Sharon Tate is drop-dead gorgeous, young, happy, stylish. She is on the crest of the Hollywood mountain top, along with Polanski. They party at the Playboy Mansion. The Manson girls are trippy garbage diving hippy chicks. Rick is getting up early to be on set, battling his realization of his fading star and his growing alcoholism. Cliff is just being zen.
Tarantino uses his stylish direction to show us 1969. Bruce Lee, Steve McQueen, Joey Heatherton, Stunt coordinators, TV show directors all given nice Tarantino-esqe treatments. The sunsets on Sunset, and the place lights up and life begins. He stays very grounded, funny but not Jokey, never going over the top with anything.
Until the End. I will leave it at that. Then everything shallow and ridiculous and wrong with Inglorious, Django, and H8 is called upon again. Where Pulp Fiction was riveting, this is less so...but when it is all over something appears on the screen that saves the whole thing brilliantly. 'Once Upon a time in Hollywood....' And there you have it. Quentin's fantasy is not trite or silly at all. It is a heartfelt bit of love, expressed in a wish that somehow I could have changed the real ending to this.
The best acting in this movie is done by the roll players. Pitt cruises along playing the roll he plays most of the time, the Super Cool guy that is capable of knocking you off your feet with one punch if you come at him. Leo stretches at points, and you can see him 'acting'. To me, not his best performance (..as in Django, Tarantino's over the top method does not seem to suit him) Margo Robbie kills it....just about perfect. Every small part is done with care and thoughtfulness.
I recommend this one strongly.