Movie Review: Licorice Pizza

 Movie Number 3 of 2022

Film: Licorice Pizza

Cinema:: The Rivoli, Village Cinemas

Stars: 5

Ah, first love. Don't you just love it?

Licorice Pizza shows first love. And the wonderful shit people got up to in the seventies at it's very best, all under the careful and loving direction of Paul Thomas Anderson, who's responsible for such great films as Magnolia, Boogie Nights and The Master. Anderson likes working with large casts and throwing up-and-comers in with big name stars. He's fond of telling big stories in an everyday way. And he's a little bit left of centre.

And in this film, he does this all of this brilliantly. 

The film provides the story of Alana Kane (newcomer Alana Haim) a young woman trying to find her place in the world, who at the start of the film is working as a school photographer's assistant. One on of her gigs, she meets Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) a teenage child actor with enough chutzpah to climb Everest in a day. For Gary, it's love at first sight. For Alana, she's a bit more dubious. 

And it goes on from there as we watch Alana assist Gary with every get rich quick scheme he can poke a stick at, from child acting, which he's obviously outgrowing in more than just age. From waterbeds, to pinball machines, the kid doesn't stop, Alana helping him, platonically, along the way. 

Then you meet some wonderful Anderson characters, There's Sean Penn as the drunken actor up for a night of it. And Bradley Cooper is hysterical as Jon Peters, and oversexed womaniser who buys a bed of the kids - with hysterical results. Other cameos from Maya Rudolph, Harriet Samson Harris (remember Frasier's agent? Her.) and Michael John Higgins among others, brings up the star power. Haim's real life family portray her screen family, rounding out the cast nicely. 

But this film belongs to Anita Haim and Cooper Hoffman. Both are going to be actors to watch in the future - Haim bringing a young Barbra Streisand kind of vibe - smart, funny, Jewish, while Hoffman, son of another Anderson alumni, Philip Seymour Hoffman, jumps off the screen, bringing all of the unwavering confidence that a 15-year-old boy can display when you're a kid of the seventies. Both of these actors are up for big things. They're amazing. What was even better was seeing Philip Seymour Hoffman's son on film, channeling his father. The apple hasn't fallen far from the tree. 

The stuff these kids get up to is the stuff of awe. It's the things that you used to get away with. 

And there is one scene with a reversing truck which is mind blowing. 

The aesthetic of the film, total seventies, is on point, from the sets to the clothes to the mannerisms. This is a love song to these times.

I adored every last polyester encrusted, shag-piled carpeted, vinyl seated moment of this film. 

It's truly awesome. 

Today's song: