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.
Paul Thomas Anderson is a filmmaker whose movies are either loved or loathed. I thoroughly enjoyed “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia” but every other film he directed just didn’t make the grade for me. While all of his movies have utilized A-list actors who have given great performances, Daniel Day-Lewis, Julianne Moore, Melora Walters, John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, whose son Cooper makes his big-screen acting debut in “Licorice Pizza,” the film itself felt like an exercise in futility.
A film needs to feel relevant, like it has a purpose, and while “Licorice Pizza” is a great homage to the ’70s, and its essence and ambiance are captured perfectly, the narrative goes nowhere. And fast. The story takes place in 1973 in the San Fernando Valley where we are introduced to Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman), a 15-year-old actor and entrepreneur who is not afraid of anyone, or anything. When he sees an opportunity to make money, he seizes the moment and brings said circumstance to a prosperous conclusion, before moving on to the next lucrative endeavor.
At his high school, he meets 25-year-old Alana Kane (Alana Haim), a photographer’s assistant he immediately becomes enamored with. He asks her out on a date but she initially refuses, stating their ten-year age difference wouldn’t go over too well but he insists and she eventually concedes. When Gary’s mother Anita (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) informs him that she can’t accompany him to New York for his work in a variety show, Alana becomes his chaperone, and their feelings for each other intensify. Over time, however, they begin a downward spiral in a love-hate relationship that, at times, has them despising one another for the successes in their individual lives, while secretly keeping tags on each other, wanting to know what they’re doing and who they’re seeing. What follows is an erratic and unstable emotional alliance that threatens to destroy them, if they don’t kill each other first.
“Licorice Pizza” is a moment captured in time, but it is a tedious and monotonous period. The two central characters, Gary and Alana, are both protagonist and antagonist, making their contrasting principles very difficult for the audience to relate to. You want to root for them both, in spite of their age difference, but their constant animosity towards each other grows tiresome and laborious, eventually forcing you to lose interest in them and their occasional yet fascinating sequence of events.
In one scene, Alana, after deciding she wants to become an actor, like Gary, auditions for a role in a film alongside movie star Jack Holden (Sean Penn), but in order to get to know her better, he takes her out on a date to a local restaurant, and while there, Jack meets his old friend and movie director, Rex Blau (Tom Waits). After much banter between the two men, Rex demands that Jack, an avid motorcycle enthusiast, jump over a fiery ramp on the golf course outside and after accomplishing the feat, you’re left wondering why the entire scene was even in the movie in the first place as it served no purpose within the overall context of the film and had it been removed entirely, would not have changed the eventual outcome and conclusion of the story and that of its two central characters.
Another scene involves Gary, Alana, and their friends delivering a waterbed to the house of Hollywood producer Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper), who threatens to kill Gary and his entire family if he messes up his house in any way, shape, or form. Jon is heading out on a date with Barbra Streisand and after leaving the house, Gary, while filling up the waterbed in the bedroom, tells Alana he didn’t appreciate being threatened by Jon so they leave, allowing the water to overflow onto the bedroom floor. On their way home, Jon flags them down after his car ran out of gas and they drive him to town and then quickly abandon him so as to get to safety. Just like the previous scene with Sean Penn, it served no purpose other than to announce the arrival of another A-list Hollywood actor and could have been completely excised as its removal would not have impacted the rest of the story.
Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim, both making their big-screen debuts, give excellent performances, a testament to Paul Thomas Anderson’s reputation as an actor’s director, and once more, he does not disappoint in that department. Hoffman and Haim are not Hollywood chiseled and well-defined and because of this, we can relate to them and their predicaments. The rest of the cast are uniformly impeccable in their respective roles and as I stated earlier, the early-to-mid ’70s milieu is flawless. It’s just a pity that Gary and Alana constantly drive a destructive wedge between themselves because as the driving forces of the story, we want them to succeed but there’s nothing like a good ol’ dose of self-sabotage to ruin what could have been a perfectly good tale.
In Select Theaters Friday, December 24th
