Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood opens in the UK this week. It’s a breathtaking and wholly affecting piece of work, and one that focuses on Hollywood’s ability to “fix” the worlds ills. Here, the dream factory conjures the ultimate happy ending.
A real sense of denouement runs riot throughout the picture. Much has been made of the director’s impending retirement, which is set to follow in the wake of the release of his next, thus far unmade feature, but one can not help but think this would have been the ideal ending for the filmmakers oeuvre. It’s a culmination of everything that he’s ever done, and everything that he’s about.
Here he takes the idea of Hollywood saving the day to its logical ending, allowing the movies to veer away from its own greatest personal tragedy. The director has been here before: There are echoes of his manipulation of world history in Inglourious Basterds, but in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood it’s all the more personal to Tarantino the cinephile.
The Glass Family 