ONCE UPON A TIME MOVIE MOVIE
His stylish home on Cielo Drive is decked out with mementoes of his former greatness, his own face almost judgementally looking down on him from the movie posters and magazine covers mounted on the walls, as if asking their now-dishevelled self, “Do you really need an eighth whiskey sour?”. Rick is surrounded by memories of his glories past that only exacerbate the depth of his decline. (In many ways, the fading star could be interpreted as a stand-in for Tarantino himself: an artist steadfastly stuck in his ways, refusing to kowtow to the zeitgeist.) Pitt’s performance is captivating, a smoothly mellow synergy of charisma and charm, but it is DiCaprio who steals the show, cementing his status as the best actor of his generation and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the last true movie star we have in this franchise-led era.ĭiCaprio may be at the height of his powers, Once Upon a Time marking his return to the silver screen following his long-overdue Oscar win, and yet his character is on a downward trajectory, an alcoholic with undiagnosed bipolar flailing for relevance in an industry indifferent to his crisis. In his portrayal of Cliff, smilingly carrying Rick’s increasingly hefty emotional load, it is impossible to overlook the deftness of Pitt’s comic timing as he halts his counterpart’s spiralling neuroses with perfectly delivered put-downs (“Don’t cry in front of the Mexicans”).
Pitt’s prowess for comedy – best showcased in his roles as a dim, money-grabbing personal trainer in Burn After Reading and a swaggering Nazi hunter in Inglourious Basterds – all too often goes underappreciated. The pair exudes an easy, companionable chemistry that is simply riveting: whether they’re kicking back with a few beers to watch FBI or Cliff is gently building up Rick’s crumbling confidence before a shoot. It is nothing short of thrilling to see DiCaprio and Pitt onscreen together, each leading man propping up the other as “more than a brother, a little less than a wife” in a remarkably realised two-hander.
ONCE UPON A TIME MOVIE TV
The film is a rambling tale of epic proportions – crammed with winking B-movie-inspired vignettes and drawn-out scenes of Cadillacs cruising down freeways – that centres on the washed-up TV cowboy Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his body double/handyman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) as they struggle to bolster the former’s waning career by reluctantly transitioning into movies. Tarantino delights in amassing these details in the lush production design, piling period-specific pastiche atop paraphernalia to dazzling effect. Once Upon a Time languidly unspools over three days in 1969, a golden time when movies cost 75¢, cigarettes are dipped in acid and barefoot Manson girls hitch rides along sun-soaked boulevards.