Licorice Pizza, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, is a funny, pleasant comedy that nevertheless harbors a sneakily dark core. It represents, in fact, a return to the thematic focus of Anderson’s early films, by which I mean Boogie Nights (1997) and Magnolia (1999). Those two acclaimed but often misunderstood movies also take place in the San Fernando Valley and explore the brutal, cruel culture of greed and glamour that, in Anderson’s cynical vision, dominates the region.
The protagonist of Licorice Pizza is Alana Kane (Alana Haim); her romantic counterpart is the juvenile Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman). Alana is twenty-five, and Gary is fifteen (and behaves like it), making for an unlikely pairing chock full of laughs, mostly at the expense of the earnest but naive Gary, who, for example, on their first date leads with, “So what are your hopes for the future?” and later pines to see Alana’s boobs. But after some silly scenes documenting the pair’s misadventures, the movie progresses, essentially, into Alana being pursued by a slow parade of older men, all of whom prove disappointing or worse due to varying manifestations of self-centeredness. She finally realizes that Gary’s sincere love for her, despite his goofiness and undeniable immaturity, is a rare thing to be valued, and the romance ends happily.
Anderson’s nostalgic, breezy tone, as in the first half of Boogie Nights, is liable to distract from his disdain for most of the adults that people 1970’s San Fernando Valley. But that disdain, as becomes eventually explicit in Boogie Nights but never quite so in Licorice Pizza, is his major project. Perhaps Magnolia is an even better parallel, since it more obviously cherishes the innocence of the Valley’s children, which invariably comes under assault from egotistical adults. In both early Anderson films, a clear division is marked between earnest, innocent characters and the stern, selfish ones who carelessly damage the first group.
Licorice Pizza is a return to that vision. Alana’s symbolic choice is between joining the egocentric adults and staying behind with the kids. And she chooses the kids. Like the truck that rolls all the way back down the hill, she undergoes not so much a coming of age as a return to origins.
It’s certainly a good movie and at times a hilarious one, but given the similarities between Licorice Pizza and Anderson’s 90’s films, I’m not quite sure what this movie adds to Anderson’s eminent body of work. The one thing I can think of is that Gary, unlike his Anderson predecessors like Rollergirl (Heather Graham) from Boogie Nights and Stanley Spector (Jeremy Blackman) from Magnolia, isn’t easily bullied. During a live taping, he pillow-whacks the mean, pompous actress who hosts his show, and when he’s condescended to by an unhinged producer, he leaves the mercurial big shot’s water on and beats up his car. Gary emerges from both encounters grinning and proud, a far cry from the misery that engulfs his early Anderson parallels.
Is this the new Anderson? Unfazed, even joyous in his satire against West Coast misers?
Not really. As I said, Alana is the protagonist, not Gary, and it’s with her that Anderson identifies. Like her, he’s emerged from the San Fernando Valley’s fog of self important losers with his sincerity intact, and if he hasn’t quite retained the innocence of a Gary Valentine, then that, too, is for the best, since his most personal films derive their authenticity from the hurt—and the anger—that always lurks just below the surface.
— Jim Andersen
For more reviews, see my review of Don’t Look Up.