Once Upon a Time …in Hollywood (2019)

The dialogue in Once Upon a Time …in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino’s blackly comic reimagining of the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders, and their Hollywood backdrop, may not fire with the same ballistic precision as Pulp Fiction (1994), or Reservoir Dogs (1992), but he plays to some of his other strengths, including a sure command of montage, deceptively attractive visual sense, and deep appreciation of popular culture at its trashiest.

Sharon Tate was an amazingly beautiful and femininely attractive actress, and the willowy Margot Robbie, playing her here, while striking looking and extremely watchable, is less so. There is no mistaking one for the other. That Tarantino intercuts between them — Tate in a scene with Nancy Kwan from The Wrecking Crew (1968), and Robbie as Tate in a Hollywood movie theater, watching herself—is one of many arch postmodern games he plays with the audience.

Leonardo DiCaprio displays much greater range than I’ve…