One Year Later: Licorice Pizza

The Data Points

• Year Released: 2021

• Runtime: 133 Minutes

• Directed: Paul Thomas Anderson

• Produced: Paul Thomas Anderson

• Starring: Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, Benny Safdie

• Oscars:

  • Won: None.

  • Nominated: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay

• IMDb Plot Summary: The story of Alana Kane and Gary Valentine growing up, running around, and going through the treacherous navigation of first love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973.

Unpacking Licorice Pizza

A Loose Hangout. Typically, I go to a Paul Thomas Anderson movie to be firmly held by the filmmaking and performances; I never know what emotion he’ll provoke within me next, and they’re often several emotions at once, but I never doubt for a second that he’s in utter control. He’s tackled several different types of films with his own twist on them, but unlike his peer Quentin Tarantino, his personal stamps are often far more intellectual and far less obvious. Most of his films are set in and around the San Fernando Valley and L.A. where he grew up; even his period pieces like The Master or There Will Be Blood can’t escape the Southern California setting. His characters and the worlds they occupy within that setting are often outcasts, sometimes close to monstrous yet almost always there is a shred of humanity within them. This breeds unusual and uncomfortable situations including intense confrontations, burning tension between characters, and occasional threats of and acts of violence.

So, when I learned that Licorice Pizza (previously known as Soggy Bottom) would be a chilled-out coming-of-age film set in the Valley in the 70’s, I was quite surprised. His previous masterpiece, Phantom Thread, was a beautiful yet quietly tense and grating exploration of the push and pull of a romantic relationship; what would it look like for him to do Dazed and Confused? The answer ended up being even better than I could have hoped for. It's a very light film, especially compared to his other works, but as I’ll discuss further it’s far from a facile hangout. Yet, it truly is also a delight to behold. The details of the period are wonderful, the cinematography is dreamy, the humor is deft and effective, the soundtrack is captivating, and it taps into the sweet universal themes of growing up and longing.

A Provocation. Everything I just described is on paper a sweeter turn for PTA, just as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was a bit of a sweeter turn for Tarantino, but in both cases the result isn’t shallow. This film has some very clever points and provocations to make about the power structures of the Hollywood suburbs, as well as a couple of provocations about the era that brought on some controversy when the film was released. The first of these was around a minor supporting character who was speaking to his Japanese wives with a very crude and offensive accent, thinking that’s how to properly communicate with them. From my view, the man himself and his ignorance was clearly the butt of this joke, and Anderson was also commenting on the power structures of then and now that allow for such a person to own and operate a Japanese restaurant. However, as someone who’s never been on the receiving end of a joke like that, perhaps I have no room to speak; that said, Anderson did witness people make jokes like that back in this time as well as witnessing racism against his Asian mother-in-law, so perhaps his honest reflection of the time is warranted.

The other controversial piece is the romance that drives much of the plot between Gary, who’s 15 years old, and Alana, whose age is a bit of a mystery; she claims to be 25, at one time indicates she might be older, but also lives at home with her sisters and doesn’t know how to order a drink. Together, they make a pairing that on paper is as odd as the two food items that make up the film’s title, and the tension between them is some of the most finely tuned in the whole film. Gary is desperately longing after Alana during the whole runtime of the film, something that Alana tolerates. Where the film gets thorny is when Alana considers how much she cares for him, but she’s not physically attracted to him in the way that he is to her. Her being drawn to him is because he provides meaning and excitement in her otherwise directionless suburban life, and it’s the frustration with that life and an inability to otherwise escape it that forces her to keep spending time with him.

The film concludes at its most dreamy, with slow-motion and gorgeous lighting and a triumphant song playing, and Gary finally kisses Alana, which she doesn’t seem to immediately mind; this is the moment that seems to have troubled people the most, which I can understand while also recognizing that even this moment of “victory” isn’t as sweetly simple as it appears. For Gary, perhaps, it is the ultimate win as he’s finally gotten to kiss the young woman he’s been obsessed with since the second shot of the film. For Alana, this is perhaps the bottom of the downward-spiraling gauntlet of disillusionment with the adult world she’s endured throughout the story. The lack of a clear moral judgment from PTA onto this moment, and their entire relationship, left some people feeling rather uncomfortable. Provoking this feeling is one of the chief efforts of the project, and we ought not dismiss provocative art especially when it’s complex as this story is. This entire movie is awash in nostalgia, and yet isn’t toothless; if anything, it feels like the sunny recollections of an older Gary who realizes the wrongness of many situations he found himself in yet remembers the era fondly nonetheless, which is a worthy framing in my eyes even if it’s sticky.

Disillusionment. Though Gary and Alana gently and harmlessly bounce their way through misadventure in the Valley, this film is a rather jaded look at power structures on the margins of Hollywood. The situations that generate the push-and-pull of Gary and Alana’s relationship are each interesting and work together to create a fascinating collage. They’re also tonally consistent with the rest of the movie; presented with the same gentle and sunny aesthetic that conjures up a memory that is dark upon reflection yet ultimately greeted with nostalgia. If you haven’t seen the movie, I’d advise you to skip the next section as I’ll be tracing the film through these points beat by beat to try and explain the overwhelming disillusionment with the “grown-up” world that PTA is interested in and that ultimately forces Alana back to Gary despite any attempts to pursue an adult life.

When Alana first meets Gary, he’s interesting because he’s a child actor, and she’s working for a photography agency with a man who smacks her butt on the job. Gary acts with a stand-in for Lucille Ball whose best days were behind her by 1973 and who we last see getting dragged out of the dressing room after she slaps Gary for making a crass joke onstage. They’re later reconciled after Gary is briefly and incorrectly arrested by police who mostly remain faceless, which is the entirety of anyone’s interaction with law enforcement in the whole movie. Alana and Gary attend a meeting with a hilarious talent agent who has quite a few things to say about Alana being Jewish and ends their meeting by saying that Alana “will lose out on work if she’s unwilling to do nudity.” Later in the film, Alana goes out for drinks with a very post-prime William Holden, who agrees to do a motorcycle jump over a flaming sand trap after running into Rex Blau who could be a stand-in for Sam Peckinpah. Holden cares nothing for Alana and doesn’t even know her name, representing a Hollywood that churns through young women. The idea of these Old Hollywood vestiges resigning themselves to running amok in the Valley to relive their glory days is quite sharp. However, PTA isn’t nicer in his portrayal of New Hollywood; Bradley Cooper turns in an amazingly manic performance as Jon Peters, a legendary womanizer and hairdresser-turned-producer who’s likely coked out of his mind, a bully to Gary, and quite forward with Alana. After a harrowing incident involving a truck out of fuel due to the Oil Embargo, Alana decides that she has had enough of these teenage shenanigans and takes a job supporting a mayoral campaign. Ultimately, she’s let down here by way of her candidate that she develops feelings for being closeted and her witnessing an argument between him and his partner that shows he’s not always the nice guy that he claims to be. At almost every conceivable turn, the “powers that be” in the film are at best letdowns and at worst malevolent forces. PTA marries this with a very gentle approach to the story, and ultimately very low stakes to give us a lot of sugar with our medicine – that is, the very best way to take it.

Reflections One Year On. I’m having trouble placing this movie in my personal ranking of PTA’s filmography, as I believe that Boogie Nights, There Will be Blood, and Phantom Thread are all-time masterpieces and the rest of his movies are essentially a small step beneath that. This movie has plenty of big and perhaps challenging ideas, but isn’t necessarily as idea-driven as those three. It feels far smaller and far more personal but is perfectly made for what it’s trying to accomplish. It really is the best of both worlds in that way; I wish every $40 million movie could be as well-made from top to bottom as this one is.

The performances are excellent, including and especially the cameo performances, but this film is anchored by two outstanding breakout/debut performances from Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim, who I genuinely hope we get to see more of onscreen in the future.

This film has gained a reputation among critics as one of the best movies of 2021 while being a bit offbeat for mainstream audiences. If that’s to be its reputation going forward, then it fits like a glove inside PTA’s already-legendary filmography, but its legacy will either be his most sweet-tempered or the beginning of a change in tone for him. I’m not sure where it’ll stand among the great coming-of-age movies, but a good companion piece that’s also deeper than it first appears is the wonderful American Graffiti. I seriously doubt the euphoria this film generates will fade with time if audiences are willing to be patient with Anderson’s meandering plotting. Perhaps in future years, we’ll look right past any controversy the movie generated, or maybe even look further into the gray areas that this film is keen on pointing out to us, inconvenient as they are to wrestle with.