It's the late 60s and Rick has new neighbours in the shape of rising stars Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and he idly dreams of befriending them and becoming relevant again but the summer of love is no more and Helter-skelter is on the horizon.
This is an amazing piece of period film making and unusual portrayal of deep but semi-transactional male friendship. It shows Dalton's frailty well without him being an asshole fading film star stereotype.
Where it struggles is in not having much actually going on and it spends a very long time not doing it. It looks and sounds fantastic while doing it though.
Margot Robbie is oddly used, we get to see her as Tate going round being shiny and nice to people and this is only setting the scene for later tragedy so its kind of necessary but also superfluous. Is it "fridging" when you're showing the build up to real events? I don't know. She's good as Tate but again doesn't do anything.
There are some weird things with Pitt's character. First there's the much criticised daydream interlude where he fights a racist caricature of Bruce Lee. Then it comes out he's most likely done something awful and that's why he only gets work from Dalton. Which mar an otherwise sympathetic character in an offhand way that the film never reflects on and I don't know what to think about that either.
It is very worth a watch for the period detail, the three leads are great but it is very long, has these weird problematic inserts and like I said little happens, 6/10.
Also Quentin, we know you like ladies' feet you can stop now.