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The first torching was shocking but I don’t get the love-in with the latest Tarantino. It was one big yawn

Susannah Butter: Daniel Hambury
Susannah Butter: Daniel Hambury

I was prepared to be disturbed, disgusted and even offended. What I didn’t expect from Quentin Tarantino’s new film was to be bored. Critics have been far too kind about Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood. It’s roundly received starry reviews and been called a love letter to the golden age of film, telling the story of an actor who is losing his touch, his loyal stunt double and his neighbours Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski, with Charles Manson’s cultish activities rumbling on in the background.

There has been uproar over the glorified violence and misogyny but that is par for the course with Tarantino films — you expect a few licks of a flame thrower; a screaming woman whose face has dissolved into a bloody mess.

Admittedly, the first torching did make me gasp but by the end I was yawning — the film is nearly three hours long and Tarantino wastes so much time with indulgent, lingering shots of Margot Robbie’s legs and casually racist stereotypes that serve no purpose other than to try and hide the fact that it’s a baggy film, lacking plot.

The violence makes Tarantino seem like the equivalent of that bore at a party who delights in winding others up with deliberately provocative lines that are ultimately dull. Arguments that his racism and sexism are ironic, a step removed from the real deal, feel futile — there’s so much cruelty in the world, so why add to it with arch fake versions? They aren’t clever enough to make him a maverick creative virtuoso, just a man who plays to the worst of human nature in a desperate bid to glean a reaction.

He has succeeded to an extent — when I saw it at Islington Vue, the audience cheered and laughed at grotesque scenes but it was more of a base response to shock than a mark of this film’s subversive genius.

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To make matters worse, I had dragged along a reluctant friend. I was acutely aware that she was hating it even more than me and I felt guilty at subjecting her to this extended wet dream of Tarantino’s. We should have left, or better followed the advice of other friends who decided not to bother — they liked Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill but since then have found Tarantino unbearable.

One redeeming feature is that it looks great. It’s heavily stylised, with grand Sixties cars and beautiful scenery, and Brad Pitt is charismatic — especially when he crunches on the celery stick in his Bloody Mary. I’ve never seen Leonardo DiCaprio give a bad performance and this is no exception, Lena Dunham has an engaging cameo (although I’m not sure why she agreed to be in it as someone who brands herself as a feminist), and the romantic, Sixties soundtrack has a halcyon charm.

"A redeeming feature is that it looks great. And Brad Pitt is charismatic, especially when he crunches on a celery stick"

But overall it’s style over substance, and actually the age it is fetishising wasn’t what Tarantino builds it up to be — there was rampant inequality, racism, sexism and corruption, which is now coming out in #MeToo and the Times Up campaign. The jokes are basic and feel like cheap shots — Tarantino sniggers at short Polish men, Bruce Lee’s accent and women who snore even though they are pretty, while Sharon Tate is portrayed as a pathetic bubble brain and an Italian woman is hysterical. And this film took Tarantino 10 years to write. If you’re intrigued by Manson you’re better off reading Girls by Emma Cline. And if it’s violence you’re after, watch Kill Bill again.

Doppelgängers are stealing the limelight

Elizabeth Warren (AP)
Elizabeth Warren (AP)

Supporters of Elizabeth Warren thought they were seeing double at a rally in St Paul, Minnesota, this week, when the senator posed for a photo with a woman who looks just like her. As US politicians go, Warren is a pretty good one to take after.

Here in London, cases of mistaken identity are everywhere. One friend resembles a young Jeremy Corbyn, and frequently has to tell people that they aren’t related.

On Tuesday a colleague was mistaken for the Almeida’s associate director Robert Icke at the first night of his new play, The Doctor. “That show was amazing,” a stranger told him. He just thought they were being friendly, and graciously accepted their congratulations.

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My own doppelgänger is former England cricket captain Alastair Cook, and yes, I will take any compliments about the best batsman of his generation. Just don’t ask me to play cricket.

*The Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh has a winning approach to looking at art. Tickets to its Bridget Riley exhibition are valid all day and staff advise a break in the middle. “There’s a lot of work to absorb,” the man on the information desk told me.

“I’d have a little walk around the paintings, go for a pint and then come back.”

Plays have intervals and half-time is crucial in football, so why not take the same approach with exhibitions? Most of us concentrate best in 20-minute bursts, after all.

Two pieces of advice: Don’t miss Riley’s early sketches downstairs — and if you do take a booze-based interlude, be prepared for Riley’s op art to make your head spin.

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