Review of Licorice Pizza (2021) by Markhreviews — 14 Jan 2022

In the initial scene of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza,” fifteen-year-old Greg (Cooper Hoffman, son of frequent Anderson collaboration Phillip Seymour Hoffman) meets mid-20s Alana (Alana Haim). She is an assistant for the company taking school pictures on site. He is immediately smitten. They create a quirky connection. Alana is intrigued because Greg has been a child actor on an “Eight is Enough”-style sitcom (featuring a profane Christine Ebersole as the matriarch). Alana acts as chaperone for a trip to New York City, then follows Greg into a series of business ventures and receives his help when pursuing her own acting ambitions. The setting is familiar territory for Anderson – the early 1970s in the San Fernando Valley, a Los Angeles suburb dominated by the porn industry and populated by middle-class families who long for Hollywood and Beverly Hills but can’t seem to make their way there. In several of Anderson’s previous films, this time and place have been used to explore the dark side of suburbia and themes like loneliness and alienation. Here, Anderson offers a lighter touch. His only apparent point in this coming-of-age tale is that first love can be exhilarating and exasperating.

Act One of the film, which centers on the burgeoning friendship/relationship between Alana and Greg, is charming. When it focuses on the rapid-fire banter, sarcasm, incessant teasing and the growing chemistry between the two, this film is endearing and fascinating. Unfortunately, the final two-thirds of the film are a series of unrelated digressions that offer an homage to ‘70s Hollywood, while doing nothing to tell us more about Greg, Alana or their relationship. When trying out for a movie role, Alana captures the attention of a motorcycle-riding William Holden character (Sean Penn), deftly renamed Jack Holden. While selling waterbeds, Greg and Alana meet Jon Peters (real guy, played by Bradley Cooper), a borderline psychotic hairstylist/movie producer and then-boyfriend of Barbra Streisand. Alana works as a volunteer for a closeted city councilman (one of the Safdie brothers) who is filled with vague, idealistic goals for his constituents but has no shred of sympathy for his gay companion. It’s a time and place Tarantino has already covered, much more effectively, in “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood.”.

As first-timers, Hoffman and Haim are both appealing. Some of Hoffman’s facial expressions and mannerisms are wistfully reminiscent of his father. Haim compellingly vacillates between coltish late adolescence to burgeoning young adulthood.

Anderson’s impeccable scene composition and unusual camera angles are on full display here. But the film, while kinder and gentler than his frenetic earlier work, has chosen to substitute random vignettes over a meaningful storyline or actual character development. Because of its technical excellence, it’s a film that critics adore. But for regular moviegoers, “Licorice Pizza” lives up to its name – an unusual set of ingredients that leave an odd aftertaste.