Tarantino's Feet-iest Movie Yet

Rating: 7/10 (20 August 2019)

Tarantino's ninth film has been hotly anticipated, and with good reason. Just to be alive at a time where Tarantino makes a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt sharing the leads is fantastic. It's the assembly of the best of Hollywood this side of the millenium. Except I left the cinema not feeling like it lived up to that at all. I'm somewhat disappointed, and without having seen Death Proof (still, I know), this is Tarantino's worst movie.
This is where I usually go into the general plot to provide context, but it's precisely this point that left me disappointed. There's no story. Not really. Rick Dalton is a has-been actor coming to the realisation that he's not as treasured in Hollywood as he used to be. Cliff Booth is his stunt double and now personal handyman, essentially blacklisted from Hollywood after allegedly killing his wife. These two fictional characters are thrust into late-60s Hollywood, and intimately related to Sharon Tate and the Manson Family. And that's the story. That's the whole thing. There aren't plot points, just characters going through the motions.
Rick and Cliff meander around LA for the first two-thirds of the movie. Rick gives a villainous performance on the set of a Western TV show while grappling with his own insecurities, while Cliff fixes an antenna, daydreams a little, and offers a lift to a member of the Manson Family back to Spahn Ranch. Meanwhile Sharon Tate goes to a small cinema to watch one of her own movies and enjoys the audience's reactions. The actual plot doesn't kick in until a 6-month time jump with the time filled in by narration, essentially cutting out some of the more interesting build-up of the film, and jumping back into the infamous Manson Family Murders, or at least Tarantino's own alternate history, fairytale retelling.
Even now I'm struggling to reconcile what the point of the first two-thirds even was. The only part that felt relevant was Cliff's escapades at Spahn Ranch as they tied directly into the film's climax. The rest was just Hollywood being self-congratulatory and intimately establishing Rick's character. Sharon Tate's inclusion was utterly pointless and could've been cut out entirely without creating any holes. I can't say I was ever bored as Tarantino is certainly capable of making the mundane seem interesting, but it certainly dragged and felt overly meandering. It's hard to believe he spent four or five years writing this and such a large portion is badly-paced and pointless. I understand this is a 'memory piece' for him, portraying the Hollywood he grew up with when he was younger, but I didn't grow up with it. I don't hold any kind of nostalgia for this time period. I want to say that's why this movie didn't do it for me, but my dad felt the same, despite it showing his childhood era of TV and movies as well.
There are moments during the movie's trunk that are worth watching though. While Rick Dalton's story on the set of a Western TV show is ultimately pointless and goes on for way too long, seeing him struggle with his insecurities offered the film's biggest emotional backbone. His conversation with his young co-star about the book he's reading and how it reminds him of himself, his breakdown in his trailer after a scene gone badly, and his reaction to praise received after a scene gone right are definite highlights of his character, and DiCaprio pulls them off fantastically. Another best actor win? Maybe not, but a really good show of talent nonetheless. I can't imagine much harder than being actor playing an actor playing a role, but he doesn't falter one bit.
That said, Cliff Booth is arguably the real main character of the movie. He comes off as a genuinely nice guy with a big heart, and while Rick pays him to be his handyman and driver, there is a real friendship between them nonetheless, completely devoid of male friendship clichÃ©s. Cliff is also a complete and utter badass, besting Bruce Lee in a spar, potentially being a wife-murderer, and taking on an entire cult on their own ground without showing an ounce of fear. Throughout the movie's runtime he's established as the kind of guy you want on your side, because he'll treat you well, and not a guy you want to oppose, because he will take you down. Of course he's instrumental in the film's alternate history climax and shows why this characterisation as a badass was not only downright cool, but also necessary. Out of all the subplots in the first two-thirds, Cliff's are the hardest to cut. And Brad Pitt owns it. He exudes cool and charm, is evidently quite capable in a fight, and hits all the comedic beats perfectly as well (his experience with acid was the source of much laughter).
As much as I love Margot Robbie, Sharon Tate's presence was unfortunately useless. Margaret Qualley was also included literally just to be underage (character-wise at least) eye-candy, with a flirty presence, and near-exploitative camera angles of her various body parts. Yes, including feet. Once Upon a Time... is Tarantino's most feet-iest movie to date. There's bare feet everywhere. Robbie gets her bare feet out in the movie theater, Dakota Fanning walks around in bare feet, and Qualley's bare feet literally take up half the screen in her scenes with Brad Pitt. Almost every other famous face is a cameo, from Bruce Dern holed up in bed, Michael Madsen included just to prove Tarantino doesn't always kill his characters off (and his car gets more screentime than he does), Al Pacino as Rick's agent at the beginning, Austin Butler as the despicable Tex, Dakota Fanning as the 'Mama' of the Manson Family, Emile Hirsch as the pointless-Tate's best friend Jay Sebring, Damien Lewis spreading gossip at the playboy mansion as Steve McQueen, Timothy Olyphant as the star of the Western TV show being filmed alongside Scoot McNairy and Clifton Collins Jr., Kurt Russell as a stunt coordinator and Zoe Bell as his wife, as well as Lena Dunham, Maya Hawke, and Harley Quinn Smith as members of the Manson Family (Rumer Willis, another daughter of the famous, is also in there as Joanna Pettet).
As a Tarantino fan, I'm unfortunately siding with the opinion that you could probably get away with missing this entirely. There's some good stuff in here, but too much of it is there just for its own sake. The film feels unfocussed and overlong, like it could do with a few more drafts in editing. The only scenes really worth watching are those involving Cliff and then everything after the 6-month jump. I give Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood an enjoyable but underwhelming 7/10. Maybe I'll reconsider with a rewatch, but that's where I sit initially.