Licorice Pizza
Trailing Oscar buzz like fairy dust, Paul Thomas Anderson’s coming-of-age saga is sweet, episodic, aimless and self-indulgent.
Boy unfazed: Cooper Hoffman
Gary Valentine is an actor, hustler, entrepreneur and schoolboy. He would also like to be a ladies’ man, but being fifteen dampens his chances with the older women. Nonetheless, he barges in where others fear to tread and on his school’s ‘picture day,’ in 1973, he convinces the photographer’s assistant to have dinner with him that night. Although ten years older than Gary, Alana Kane is drawn to the boy’s can-do enthusiasm and easy charm. It may be the beginning of a sort of relationship…
Following the critical and commercial success of his second film, Boogie Nights (1997), Paul Thomas Anderson was more or less given carte blanche on his next feature, Magnolia (1999). And so the pattern was set for his next six pictures, all of which attracted considerable critical acclaim. In many ways, Licorice Pizza feels like his most personal feature to date, which proves both an advantage and drawback. Much of it is inspired by the singular life experience of Anderson’s friend, the film producer Gary Goetzman. Goetzman, long before he formed the production company Playtone with Tom Hanks, really was a child actor and embarked on the business ventures as described in Anderson’s film. The title, though, is another matter, being borrowed from a chain of Californian record shops – and supposed to summon up the flavour of the film, so to speak: something sweet, gooey and quintessentially American.
Anderson has always displayed an individual style, and so Licorice Pizza is an unconventional, free-wheeling affair, peppered with distinctive moments. And while it has drawn the now predictable critical endorsement – it won the best film award from the National Board of Review – it is not without its problems. Its strength is the central romantic friendship between Gary and Alana, which feels special, spontaneous and genuine. And as embodied by Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim, the out-of-love birds feel as real as you can get in a studio picture. Hoffman’s teenage skin condition is not only evident throughout, but is referred to, while Haim’s ‘Jewish’ nose is also referenced. These are living, breathing people and Hoffman, the son of the late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, does not let his father down. And Alana Haim, who plays guitar and keyboards in the rock band Haim with her sisters Este and Danielle, is a delight, acting alongside her band members (who play her siblings).
It is perhaps a shame, then, that Anderson has not found a more cohesive vehicle for his stars, who seem to drift from one scene to the next without any narrative traction or purpose to serve them. Stellar cameos give the film some lift (Bradley Cooper is fun in a grotesque reading of the film producer Jon Peters), but seem meretricious and distracting. More successful are random passages in which odd characters are permitted to shine, notably Harriet Sansom Harris in a scene-stealing turn as Gary’s agent. But truth be told, there is a looseness and shapelessness to the film that invites too many moments of inertia and thumb twiddling. Be that as it may, for those who like a bit of liquorice on their pizza, this sweet and rambling slice of nostalgia may be to their taste.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Skyler Gisondo, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, John Michael Higgins, Christine Ebersole, Harriet Sansom Harris, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, Benny Safdie, Ryan Heffington, Nate Mann, Joseph Cross, Danielle Haim, Este Haim, Moti Haim, Donna Haim, Isabelle Kusman, George DiCaprio, Ray Chase, Emma Dumont, Maya Rudolph, John C. Reilly.
Dir Paul Thomas Anderson, Pro Sara Murphy, Adam Somner and Paul Thomas Anderson, Screenplay Paul Thomas Anderson, Ph Michael Bauman and Paul Thomas Anderson, Pro Des Florencia Martin, Ed Andy Jurgensen, Music Jonny Greenwood, Costumes Mark Bridges.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Focus Features/Bron Creative/Ghoulardi Film Company-Universal Pictures.
134 mins. USA. 2021. UK Rel: 7 January 2022. US Rel: 26 November 2021. Cert. 15.
