*This article contains spoilers.

Once upon a time, somewhere far from Hollywood, critics decided that movies for grownups should not be fun, and that the filmmakers who make them should be punished. For publications like The Guardian, the latest unacceptable pusher of a good time is Quentin Tarantino, with his long-anticipated Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood.

“Whatever the merits of his new film, Tarantino’s films have revelled in extreme violence against female characters,” says the piece, entitled “End of the affair: why it’s time to cancel Quentin Tarantino.” Time Magazine went so far as to count “every line in every Quentin Tarantino film to see how often women talk,” tallying the results in data charts.

This nakedly ideological ire against not just the movie, but Tarantino himself, extends even to The New Yorker—the same New Yorker where Pauline Kael, a decidedly non-ideological film critic, presided for a generation. “Tarantino’s love letter to a lost cinematic age is one that, seemingly without awareness, celebrates white-male stardom (and behind-the scenes command) at the expense of everyone else,” writes Richard Brody.

Once Upon A Time…in Hollywood is a rollicking cinematic collage assembled around three main characters: a washed up B-movie actor, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) who pines for the A-list glamour of his next door neighbor, Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). Dalton, along with his stunt double and loyal friend Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), watch longingly as Tate and her husband, Oscar-winner Roman Polanski, pull out of their next door driveway. The couple then speed away in their breezy convertible—young, fiercely beautiful, and in love.

🎧 Listen to this article — available to paid subscribers. Read by William Laing.