You Will Not Forget Alana or Gary

 LICORICE PIZZA (2021)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Paul Thomas Anderson's deliciously sweet and strangely hypnotic "Licorice Pizza" is one of the finest films of his career - so abrupt in its own curlicue rhythms and so hypnotically alive in its romantic notions of adolescence that it stands out with paramount greatness. It is suffused with love over romance between young people and with collectively distant memories of a time and place in the pre-teen years when everything was somehow strange and wonderful. That collection of memories and deeply-rooted nostalgia of a time and place reminded me of Richard Linklater's "Boyhood" yet, rather than focusing a story told through the decades, "Licorice Pizza" is told through a shorter amount of time and almost as brilliantly. A charming knockout of a movie. 

Of course, there are two shifting points-of-view in "Licorice Pizza" and only one character is a pre-teen, a certain Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman, Philip Seymour Hoffman's son) who is an actor in commercials and TV variety specials. He is bright, energetic, whimsical and also has an entrepreneurial spirit (he manages to open a waterbed company and a pinball machine arcade!) He also falls head over heels for Alana (Alana Haim), a 25-year-old girl photographer's assistant with a stubborn side and yet a lively spirit who can stomach a lot of heartache (oh, she can drive a mean truck with no gas in reverse too). Alana tries to push away Gary yet she is amazed at his tenacity, asking her to just come by and say hello at his favorite restaurant. Alana shows up and, as framed by director Anderson (who serves as one of the cinematographers), she is in the background and we only see the back of Gary's head in the foreground. She avoids eye contact at first and then she turns to him and says, "You are being creepy." The honest delivery of that line by Alana Haim took me back to my adolescent years and "Licorice Pizza" becomes fixated on that initial element of surprise and attraction in ways I had not seen before in a delicious long take. It is snapshot of a memory, and the whole film operates on that level. 

Gary tries his hand at selling waterbeds but eventually it goes broke during the oil embargo crisis of the 1970's because, you know, oil is necessary to make rubber (Alana reminds him, amazed at his obliviousness). Eventually Gary tries his hand at a pinball arcade after pinball is legalized, while Alana wants to mature by going her own way and not being Gary's business partner. She wants to hang with the adults, not adolescents, yet she is still tickled by Gary who is wiser, at times, beyond his years. Alana eventually works for a mayoral candidate and tension breaks when someone may either be trying to blow up the headquarters or be a reporter. We never quite find out who the mystery person is and the whole film revolves around adults whose world the younger people cannot comprehend. 

There are strange scenes involving the adult characters performing actions that make us question them as well. It was then I realized that they were being seen through Cooper and Alana's point-of-view and they see the world as strange and difficult. When we get scenes of a bearded Bradley Cooper as a womanizing, haughty Jon Peters who insists that Cooper pronounce Barbara Streisand's last name correctly, the movie almost loses us for introducing such a wild and crazy privileged Hollywood type who tries to beat the gas line by threatening the gas station's customers with a match. Jon smashes windows and has such total disregard for anyone or anything, all of which is seen from Alana's point-of-view. Then we get scenes of a seemingly calm Jack Holden (Sean Penn), an actor not unlike the late William Holden who is smitten with Alana whom he hopes to cast in his new movie as a character named Rainbow, talking about Korea yet in cinematic terms, almost like he is reading lines from a script and seeking approval from others. During a conversation fraught with tales of behind-the-scenes movie jargon and other indiscernible situations between Holden and his drunk director (high-pitched performance by Tom Waits), Alana is puzzled and says, "what are you guys talking about?" This sequence ends with Holden on a motorcycle and Alana falls to the ground and Gary, who had been watching this whole incident from afar, comes to her rescue.

That is at the offbeat heart of "Licorice Pizza" - Gary and Alana's unconsummated love for each other overcomes all obstacles. A literal running gag is that every time something happens (like Gary's arrest for a murder he did not commit), Gary and Alana run to each other and embrace. They remain loyal to each other no matter the jealousies or any pain or guilt. That in of itself makes the film doubly romantic, more so than any movie about young people that I've seen. Once the film is over, you will not forget the faces of Alana or Gary (the two actors make their amazing debut in this film and I expect great things from both of them in the future). They make us remember the power of distant memories from our early years and Paul Thomas Anderson has made those memories palatable. A wondrous achievement that you will not forget.