Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

Set in 1969, Quentin Tarantino's new film is two stories ran in parallel. The first is total fiction and concerns Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), a TV cowboy in the long running series ‘Bounty Law’.

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Rick is now a fading star as Hollywood moves on to newer and younger things. So Rick is attempting to reinvent himself but is only being offered bit parts as a bad guy. On the downward curve alongside him is his stunt man Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). They are drinking buddies but while Rick lives in luxury in the Hollywood hills, Cliff lives in a trailer with his dog, Brandy. 

Meanwhile, living next door to Rick on Cielo Drive is Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha) with his wife Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). Cue the second story, a factual one that is about to get the Tarantino treatment.

The film is set in the months leading up the real life murder of the pregnant Tate and all the other occupants of the house on Cielo Drive at that time. Tarantino slow burns through that period filling in Rick and Cliff’s story and dropping in casual encounters with Charles Manson (Damon Herriman) and some of his ‘Family’ members. Cliff even visits Spahn Ranch to see an old acquaintance George Spahn (Bruce Dern) where the Family are now holed up.

Where is the film going? Of course with Tarantino you can never be sure until you get there. He could have recreated the murders. He certainly wouldn't have baulked at that. In fact you find yourself waiting for tragedy to strike knowing that with Tarantino they would have been in equal parts brilliant and unwatchable but he didn't. Thankfully he didn't. The title of the film implies this is a fairy tale, where endings can be anything you want them to be, so all bets are off.

Overall it’s a long, but mesmerizing, film with all the usual immaculate detail along with an incredible soundtrack (naturally), great cinematography, great acting especially DiCaprio and Pitt among plenty of famous names both as actors and as characters played by other actors. Typically there’s plenty of drugs and violence, and a stirring of controversy in casting Cliff as a wife killer among other things in the film to get people wound up but most of all Tarantino does what he does best. He tells a great story.

Some Quentin Tarantino movies of late have disappointed, this one doesn’t. This is right up there with his best. He might as well retire now.

Animals

Laura (Holliday Grainger) and Tyler (Alia Shawkat) are two friends who share a flat in Dublin and enjoy a hedonistic lifestyle with lashings of drink, drugs and casual sex. Robin Ellacott as you've never seen her before.

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The pair simply get through their days so that they can live their nights but you have to wonder how, as they both appear to work as baristas, they can afford to do this. It is true that they do seem to have a knack of finding functions where there is free drink on offer while Tyler is shameless about decanting the dregs left in other people’s glasses into her own. There is barely a single scene in the film where wine is not being drunk or drugs being snorted. A lot of the film’s budget must have gone on ‘substances.

The girls’ friendship is a close one, at times they even share a bed and rarely leave each other's side, but as they enter their 30s Laura begins to wonder if it’s time to avert an early death and grow up. She’d also quite like to finish the book she’s been writing for the last ten years, which only stretches to ten pages at the moment.

Her sister, once their partying partner in crime, is now married, pregnant and sober. She is increasingly disapproving of her sister's lifestyle and of Tyler in particular. Whereas Laura is close to her family, Tyler never sees hers.

An opportunity for a more balanced way of life presents itself when Laura meets classical pianist Jim (Fra Fee). He is diligent, level-headed and hard working. A grown up even. Everything she isn’t. 

Jim tries to fit in with Laura’s partying but he just isn’t very good at it. While Laura starts to think more and more that settling down with Jim might be quite a nice option. She tries to bridge both of her worlds, not wanting to become as boring as her sister but equally not wanting to abandon her best friend, and mostly fails. Tyler is quick to see which way the wind is blowing and doesn’t like the prospect of losing her friend.

Laura then compounds her dilemma by meet a dodgy poet called Marty (Dermot Murphy) who she clearly has the hots for but can’t follow through, well... almost but not entirely, you assume out of loyalty to Jim. Then when she finds out that Jim is cheating on her she has the nerve to be upset about it. They separate, leaving Laura alone to perhaps finally finish that book...

It’s one of those films that just drifts along and that’s a style I really like. None of the characters in the film are particularly likeable, so it’s hard to know where your sympathies lie, but that’s the point really. Well worth a look.