Columbia Pictures/Handout, has been viewed 13 million times, approximately two dozen of them by me. I seem to be obsessed with it, and not in the casual way some people say “obsessed.” It makes my heart thump and also kind of sink and ache, which is the way I react to art that moves me, be it novels, paintings, pop songs, arias or films.
Then boom, it’s Act 3, a swirling montage of Fun and Uh-Oh: punch, dance, horse gallop, wary Cliff, creepy women, karate chop, gunshot, drink, drive, swim. Leo at a wet bar! Brad in brown-lensed aviator sunglasses! Margot in a pool! Timothy Olyphant looking hot! Dakota Fanning – holy heck, is she Squeaky Fromme? It’s cool, it’s dangerous, it’s too much, it’s going to snap.
“Here I am, flat on my ass, and who’s living next door to me?” Rick whines – speaking for literally every person who’s ever lived in L.A. Everyone there wants to appear laid back, but everyone is on edge, because someone youngerrichersmarter is always coming along behind – even, the casting implies, behind kings such as Pitt and DiCaprio. The sunniness of Hollywood’s no-seasons tricks you into thinking time isn’t passing, that you’re not aging. That you won’t die.