Welcome! Thanks for dropping in for the second-to-last installment in the Margot Robbie filmography watch through…for awhile anyways. That’s right, after this week, Babylon (2022) will be the final film before we’re currently up to date with Margot’s filmography. However, let’s not look past today’s entry as it is one that continues to grow on me with each rewatch. Settle in as we head back to Hollywood in 1969 in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019).
Title: Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Released: May 21, 2019 (premiere – Cannes Film Festival in France), first released theatrically on July 24, 2019 (Taiwan)
Runtime: 2 hours 42 minutes
Watched via: Blu-ray
Early 1969 in Hollywood, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a star of TV Westerns. Well, Rick Dalton was a star. He’s noticed that the roles are fewer and farther between now. In fact, he’s been regulated to the status of “the heavy”.
What’s “the heavy” do? Well, Rick would come in fresh off a canceled show to play the villain, then when the hero needs to come out on top, Rick would put him over in a fight. If you’re a wrestling fan, Rick has been regulated to jobber status.
As one would imagine, this is a blow to the ego that Rick isn’t handling very well. When he meets agent Marvin Schwarz (Al Pacino) for a drink, Marvin suggests that Rick head over to Italy and be the star in a string of Spaghetti Westerns. However, this proposition is, in Rick’s eyes, a death worse than forever only getting work as “the heavy”.
Meanwhile, Rick’s best friend and stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), isn’t having an easy go of things either. In addition to being Rick’s stunt double, Cliff also serves as his personal assistant and driver. Why Rick’s driver? Well, as we’re told, there’s not much that Rick enjoys more than drinking other than drinking and driving. Cliff has a tough time finding work outside of working with Rick, mainly because there’s a rumor that Cliff can’t escape, rumor has it that he murdered his wife and got away with it.
By pure chance, Rick just happens to live next door to Roman Polanski (Rafał Zawierucha) and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). Polanski is just coming off of Rosemary’s Baby and Rick sees his in. All he needs to do is befriend Polanski and his and Cliff’s troubles will be over.
Though, if there’s one thing you can count on in the entertainment industry, it’s uncertainty.
When you have a movie that has a loosely flowing narrative, it is incredibly easy to lose the audience by simply having too much going on. Luckily for anyone who sits down to watch Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019), Tarantino shows again that he is more than capable of constructing a loose narrative that effortlessly flows between storylines while keeping the audience’s attention.
Yes, the main focal point is the fork-in-the-road career moment for both Rick and Cliff. And at first, when you see the year is 1969, and later the street sign for Cielo Drive and Margot as Sharon Tate, you think, “oh, this isn’t going to end well at all”. However, that never overtakes our main focal point. We sort of flow in and out of Sharon Tate’s life as she becomes a star. There are other little nuggets we get as well hinting at what is simmering below the surface, specifically when Cliff heads out to Spahn Ranch.
Everyone in this absolutely knocks their respective roles out of the park. From Leo and Pitt to Margot, Bruce Dern, Kurt Russell, and everyone in-between. Not a single cast member feels miscast and everyone appears to have genuine chemistry with one another while on screen.
Though it isn’t just the cast that steals the show. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019) was nominated for 10 Oscars in total and wound up winning 2. Pitt won for Supporting Actor and Barbara Ling took home an Oscar for Production Design. While I would’ve liked to see it win Original Screenplay, Costume, and Directing, 2020 just so happened to be the year of Parasite, so there was no way this was going to clean house.
This was my third time viewing Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019) and I’ve enjoyed it more and more on each rewatch. It is a beautiful ode to the golden age of Hollywood and, to an extent, Spaghetti Westerns. Honestly, I’d put this right behind Jackie Brown as my second favorite Tarantino film.
Whether you’ve seen if before or still looking to cross it off of your watchlist, do not sleep on Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019).
So what say you?
If you’ve already seen Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019), what did you think?
Drop a comment below or reach out to me on Bluesky and tell me all about it!
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