Review of Licorice Pizza (2021) by Sharsal — 27 Mar 2022

Having heard the hype about this film, I decided to stream it. Let me start by saying that I was 22 years old in 1973 and already married, living on the East Coast. The film had an absurd plot from the get go: a pimply faced, chubby teenager is madly attracted to an average looking young adult who comes to his high school for work.

Right then, the movie lost me. The film’s plot gets even more ridiculous: the teen seems never to attend school again, instead he ricochets from one crazy business scheme to the next, with some questionable acting jobs in between.

Meanwhile, the young woman, whose Jewish identity was revealed through a somewhat anti-Semitic encounter with a talent agent, and a brief scene during a Sabbath dinner in her home, made me wince, as I am Jewish.

She was portrayed as an aimless, unmoored person, who for some unknown reason, ultimately submits to the attention of the teen. The total mismatch between these two people, both physically and age wise was hard to believe in.

The in-between scenes were chaotic and disjointed. I literally hated every second of this film. It deserves no awards by the Academy of Motion Pictures. None.