Movie Review - Licorice Pizza

I've never really been a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson. Yes, all of his films have been critically acclaimed and most of them get nominated for Academy Awards. Two of which have been up for Best Picture, that of There Will Be Blood (2007) and Phantom Thread (2017). If you look at his films from Boogie Nights (1997) to Inherent Vice (2014), it's clear that he likes the era of the late 1970's and early 80's, which were the years Anderson came of age. He also loves stories set in Los Angeles or that are about Los Angeles, which is his hometown. However, if this film feels like any of Anderson's previous, it feels like Magnolia (1999) and a bit of Punch-Drunk Love (2002), which is my one and only favorite film from Anderson.

The entire film is based on true experiences that Anderson had or was told from real-life people. In some cases, he uses the real-life names of the people in question. In other instances, he changes the name a bit. Even though it's all based on real-people, when put all together, it feels like too much. It feels like Magnolia in that it's almost trying to be an ensemble piece that's about these disparate but thinly linked group of people. The problem is that those disparate group of people are more interesting or compelling than the central couple. Yes, the film is underlining the fact that the male protagonist is supposed to be the most interesting and most compelling person, but that feels like the film trying too hard to underline that.

Cooper Hoffman, the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, the late actor who has worked the most with Anderson, stars as Gary Valentine, a 15-year-old entrepreneur living in the San Fernando Valley. He's based on the real-life Gary Goetzman, a Hollywood producer, most associated with Tom Hanks. Anderson isn't telling Goetzman's biography. Anderson has merely taken elements of Goetzman's life and incorporated into this narrative. So much of Goetzman's life is present here and even though it might all be true, it's too much in this narrative, and compressed in such a short period of time that it feels too much. It also feels a bit ridiculous, which is probably the point, given this film is clearly a comedy.

Hoffman is great though as this extremely outgoing and overly confident, young man. Yes, he has his insecurities about things, but he can come across as such a hotshot who can be very bold and strong in how he presents himself. He makes you believe that he can be a 15-year-old business owner. Unfortunately, we see Gary working as an actor. We see him working as a PR representative. We see starting his own waterbed business. We then see him starting his own pinball arcade. We see him doing this presumably all in one summer. This could be true. It could be compressed. That doesn't matter. It's just too much because it feels too disjointed jumping from one thing to the next with reckless abandon.

Alana Haim, a Grammy Award-nominated music artist who is making her feature debut, along with Hoffman, also stars as Alana Kane, a photographer's assistant who is 25 but she ends up getting involved with Gary after he hits on her while she's there working on taking student photos for the yearbook or something. We see her being pulled along with whatever business or scheme that Gary wants to do, often based on random whims. I almost feel like there's a thematic reason for having Gary jump from one thing to another. It's meant to impress her with the fact that Gary has more gumption or purpose in his life than she does where she's still searching for that.

If the film had centered more on this thematic idea, I would be more aligned with it. Yet, the film really is more about Alana and Gary falling in love. This is problematic due to the age-gap. She's 25 and he's 15. In the wake of the Me Too Movement, the conversations regarding sexual assault and sexual harassment have been supremely changed. People will make the excuse that because the underage person is a boy, then it's different. If the sexes were reversed and it was a 25-year-old man going after a 15-year-old girl, then people might feel differently here. At one point, Alana exposes her breasts to Gary. If a 25-year-old man exposed himself, like his penis, to a 15-year-old girl, would people be okay with it?

Benny Safdie (Pieces of a Woman and Good Time) plays Joel Wachs, a Los Angeles City Councilman who ran for mayor in 1973. Wachs is a real-life person who really was a councilman and really ran for mayor. Joel is a closeted gay man who has a boyfriend named Matthew, played by Joseph Cross (Mank and Milk). Ostensibly, it's a story line that feels like a non sequitur that doesn't feel vital to the love story. It goes to the thematic idea of Alana trying to find herself, but the story line feels like it could have been and should been the whole narrative. It was refreshing because there's an effeminate man, depicted in this film that feels like a gay stereotype, whereas Joel and Matthew aren't stereotypes but feel like more fleshed out characters. It was also refreshing to see minority characters not be stereotypes, given that the film engages in pretty gross and racist jokes against Asian characters.

Rated R for language, sexual material and drug use.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 13 mins.

In theaters, including Rehoboth Beach.