Licorice Pizza

Some, perhaps many viewers will consider the relationship between Gary and Alana "toxic."  Mainly because the boy is 15 and the girl is 25.   This age gap will prevent them from appreciating anything about this film; they just can't get past that.  But there is also a scene, actually two, where an American man tries to communicate with his Japanese wife with a wildly exaggerated accent.  The sizable audience of the Culturally Sensitive are crying foul, accusing writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's LICORICE PIZZA from last year of being racist.  Despite that these scenes are clearly satiric, this will be the final shovel pat upon this movie as far as they are concerned.  

Too bad for them.  I'm spending so much space addressing this online criticism as to me it is an alarming trend.  The so-called SJW (Social Justice Warrior) mantra.  Judging art solely on political correctness.  Always been there, of course, as folks tend to get hung up on one or two issues that nullify a work of art for them.  This also occurs when someone won't watch a movie or television program because the lead actor is a pig in real life.  Reading their missives has become as infuriating as it is boring.  Anyone familiar with PTA's films will understand that a rather twisted, alternative point of view will be had to examine somewhat twisted individuals.  If there is a toxic relationship in any of his movies, it is to be found in PHANTOM THREAD, another film with deceptive marketing, perhaps to make it more palatable to sensitive audiences.  "Sensitive" these days is no longer limited to evangelical finger waggers.  The "woke" crowd might be even worse.  This POV is also creating a lot of well meaning but crap films.

Ahem.  To me, LICORICE PIZZA is another significant work from Anderson, and I love that he goes full tilt period piece, including the willingness to go down very un-PC pathways.   Just like a real '70s movie would've;  it is the only correct choice, period.  

Gary (Cooper Hoffman) is a rather aggressive and enterprising San Fernando Valley kid who has already had a film and television career, but prospects are becoming fewer and far between.  As it is the early '70s, and despite the fact he's still in high school, he sees opportunities to open businesses for waterbeds and pinball machines.  He becomes smitten with photography assistant Alana (Alana Haim) on Picture Day at school.  She rebuffs his smooth patter, but in fact shows up at the restaurant  at which he suggests they meet.   This will begin a long odyssey of denial for both of them as they pair off with others, ignore each other's advances, reconcile, repeat.  Almost like cat and mouse.  Should such a union even occur? He is a minor, after all.

Chronologically, at least.  Gary has the brain and personality of a 40 year old hustler, and even though we at times want to wring his neck he is just so ingratiating.   One might say the same of Alana, who is still trying to reconcile adulthood.  She is sexy yet off putting, and often as conniving as her would-be beau.  We are frustrated with her for her willing embrace of arrested development as she begins hanging with Gary and his high school buds.  She will have a moment of insight after watching them act like walking hormones,  then seek a grown up volunteer gig with a mayoral campaign.  But are she and Gary meant to be?

There are two highly amusing cameos by Sean Penn, as Jack Holden (based on the actor William), and Bradley Cooper as Jon Peters, based on the same named producer.  Tom Waits also turns up as Rex Blau, a film director based on the likes of Sam Peckinpah and others.  It's intriguing how Anderson mixes real details with fictional ones.  This movie in fact offers some wry observations of the Hollywood scene, especially the auditioning process.

LICORICE PIZZA has many of the typical rom-com tropes, including the final sequence where our protagonists run through city streets to find each other.  Or that scene you may have caught in the trailer, when Alana hoists her shirt and then slaps Gary when he asks to touch.  Straight out of the playbook.  But the film is far from ordinary, and Anderson's laid back style and unique narrative voice is so rare in cinema these days each of his films is cause to celebrate.  And see in a theater, as he continues to be an advocate of celluloid, the only way to capture the aesthetic he seeks.  And he does, especially in 70mm.

Very good soundtrack, too.  The use of Paul McCartney's "Le Me Roll It" is especially effective.   

Cooper, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Haim, a musician in a band for whom PTA has shot some videos, are just perfect and natural.  And engaging.  I could watch a mini-series with them.  Admittedly, this slightly overlong film does feel like one at times.