Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film, is a nostalgia-laden love letter to Hollywood during the era of the Summer of Love. A project that feels deeply personal, the film dials down the director’s penchant for provocation and sensationalism, and instead delivers a mature snapshot of friendship, vintage Tinseltown, and a time that has escaped our grasp. Elevated by the powerful trio of Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and a radiant Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is some of the best filmmaking that 2019 has to offer.

Just a few short months ago, while still shrouded in secrecy and before its standing ovation at Cannes, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood was primarily regarded as director Quentin Tarantino’s “Manson Murders Movie.” The working theory was that the storied director would once again be diving into the sanguine pool of sensationalist violence that has since become the director’s trademark. The outcry was fierce: it’s one thing to assassinate Hitler, or to give slaveowners a gruesome comeuppance, or to cut a Bride-fueled swath of bloody vengeance, but the darkness and depravity of the real-life Sharon Tate murders is something else entirely. An innocent young woman in her prime and the unborn life inside her cut down, along with four other guests in her home, the Manson murders stoke a morbid curiosity, and when put together with Quentin Tarantino, they become a potentially troubling recipe for insensitivity. But now, almost two weeks after the film’s wide release, it has become evident that not only was this not the case, but that Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood can be construed as Tarantino’s most sensitive film. A wistful reminiscence and a mournful wish, Once Upon a Time is a leisurely journey through Tarantino’s late 60s mind palace, and a narrative that treats the memory of Sharon Tate with the utmost respect.

While many remember the 1960s as a time of love, hippies, and a burgeoning counterculture, that fateful era also saw the death of American innocence; by decade’s end, Vietnam, assassinations, and the civil rights movement had shaken the country to its core, with the vicious Manson murders acting as a macabre capstone that all but ensured the death of the American Dream. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood takes place during the months in 1969 leading up to that bloody evening on Cielo Drive, with each title card ticking away like a pendulum of dread. And while the film works its way towards the events of August 8th, it engages in a freestyle haze with its three main players: Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), a Hollywood star in the twilight of his career relegated to playing heavies on television serials; Dalton’s driver, stuntman, and best friend Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), a salt-of-the-earth type with a violent past; and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), the real-life starlet that flits in and out of the story. The historical murders loom over the film, but Tarantino makes it clear that the Mansons and their crimes aren’t the point of the story - Damon Herriman as Charles Manson is barely present, given what amounts to a spectral cameo. Hollywood is also the first Tarantino film to not have a cohesive narrative: it is a film that functions more like a hangout movie, but a hangout movie with a central theme. Through its captivating performances and incredibly detailed world, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood pulses with Tarantino’s desperate longing, a desire to preserve in amber a Tinseltown playground on the eve of its destruction.