Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

A film set in Los Angeles in 1969. Rick Dalton is a former television star. His series is over, he now plays villains on other people's shows, and he knows it is the end of his career. Cliff Booth is his stunt double and driver. He can no longer get work on set and lives in a caravan with his dog. New neighbours move in next door. A director and his wife, Sharon Tate. From there the film proceeds with almost no incident. A day, a set, a bar, a drive, a cinema and a ranch. What the narrative is interested in is not event but texture: the film builds the Los Angeles of 1969 out of radio advertisements, signs, film posters and car interiors, and spends most of its time on that. Almost nothing happens in the Sharon Tate line. She shops, watches her own film in a cinema and listens to the audience laugh; the narrative shows her as someone living rather than as a victim. The ranch section is the tensest part and works without a single shot fired. The ending changes real history. The director had done this before and his purpose here is plain. Episodes of Rick's own series and films were shot separately; the narrative uses them folded in with real period material. Brad Pitt won the Academy Award for supporting actor; the film also won for production design. Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Al Pacino and Bruce Dern are in the cast. Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed. Who it is for: anyone who can take period atmosphere over plot. Who it is not for: anyone looking for pace; the film runs two hours forty and deliberately has nothing happen for most of it.