Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood is teeming with bad people. Even the film’s protagonists, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), are not necessarily the sort of guys you’d want to hang out with in real life; Rick’s an aging narcissist, and Cliff is an accused murderer who loves to pick fights. But the film does provide at least one true hero—a character who overcomes her basest instincts and carries herself with loyalty, honor, and valor. Her name is Brandy, and she is a very good dog.

Brandy belongs to Cliff Booth—and she’s clearly his better half. When he arrives home to his trailer, this angelic brown pit bull is always there, patiently waiting for dinner. For all of Cliff’s failings as a human being, he appears to be an excellent dog owner; he feeds her a nicely varied diet of wet and dry foods, flavored to taste like exotic meats such as rat and raccoon. And he’s even got this delightful little meatball trained to sit still as he prepares her supper, licking her chops as she watches him dump her nightly feast into a massive bowl. She runs over to eat it only after he grants permission; as any dog owner can tell you, this level of discipline is no small feat.

Although she might seem like an ancillary character, one could argue that Brandy is one of the many Old Hollywood callbacks Tarantino has injected into this film. During their early days in Tinseltown, canine actors were often called upon to play heroic characters whose communication skills bordered on preternatural. Consider Lassie, who is best known for her ability to rescue her human companions from various states of peril, or Rin Tin Tin, who had multiple doubles himself. Showbiz dogs have gotten a little more realistic since then; most of the ones you’ll see on TV and in film these days act a lot more like the furballs viewers keep in their own homes. But not Brandy.

Like the larger-than-life hounds of yore, Brandy is both a friend and an ally in arms; the valiant pooch even plays an integral part in the film’s ultra-violent ending. Perhaps that’s why she won the film its only award at Cannes: the Palm Dog award. (Seriously.) Tarantino himself has praised her acting chops: “When I was editing the movie I realized, she’s a great actress,” he said of the pup when she won the honor. “I actually started seeing things in her face when I was cutting it together that I didn’t see on the day, so whatever little difficulties we had on set just really melted away when I saw what a great performance she gave.”

It’s clear that in some ways, Brandy is Cliff’s best buddy. Unlike Rick, who demands constant affirmation and favors from Cliff—often treating him more like an assistant than a friend—Brandy has limited demands. She seems content to watch TV all day while Cliff galavants around town, dropping in on cults and doing shirtless handyman work. All she wants is a nice semi-gelatinous meal when evening falls. She is, it seems, an introvert with very few needs. That said, she also sticks up for herself, urging Cliff along when he’s pouring her food into the bowl too slowly or giving her short shrift at the end of a long day. Communication is key to any friendship, and it’s clear that Brandy knows this well.

But beyond that, a lot of what makes Brandy great is the way she’s shot; close-ups of her face grant Sayuri, the canine actor who plays her, a hyper-expressive quality, and the camera frequently makes use of all the ways dogs communicate—capturing her every last impatient grunt and ecstatic tail wag. Throughout the movie, this star performer hits her marks with precision. We can only hope she was given plenty of treats along the way; she deserves all of them.

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