Movie Review: 'Licorice Pizza' is a Glorious Slice of 70's Life

Licorice Pizza stars Cooper Hoffman as Gary Valentine, an enterprising 16 year old with a restless mind. Gary is on angle in every moment of his life having broken into Hollywood as a child actor and parlayed that into other enterprises. As Licorice Pizza plays out we watch Gary find opportunities at every turn due to his immense charisma and curiosity. It’s Gary’s fearless, self promoting confidence, that catches the attention of Alana while she’s working as an assistant to a photographer for Gary’s school pictures.

The fact that Alana is clearly an adult and Gary is not does not slow Gary down for a moment. What some people see as an obstacle, Gary sees as an opportunity others aren’t taking advantage of. That’s not to say that Gary is intending to take advantage of Alana, with her worldly qualities and her own strong sense of self, Alana is not one who could be taken advantage of. No, rather, Gary and Alana’s mutual admiration for each other seems to stem from game recognizing game. Certainly, for Alana, there is great entertainment in watching Gary work his game so hard.

One big flex that Gary uses to get Alana’s attention is inviting her to be his chaperone on a trip to New York City. Gary has been starring in a production of Yours, Mine and Ours with a big time female comedian in the lead and when she gets an offer to take the show from L.A to New York for a talk show appearance, Gary uses the occasion to convince Alana to spend time with him. It works but it also backfires when Alana meets one of Gary’s co-stars and decides to date him instead of Gary.

Of course, Gary doesn’t give up and it is his and Alana’s relationship that is at the heart of Licorice Pizza but it’s not so much about Gary pursuing a romantic relationship with Alana as it is about a boy experiencing his first glimpses of adulthood and first love and heartache. Gary Valentine is the kind of character that seems to be trying to pack an entire lifetime of experiences into his teenage years, as if he didn’t feel that he had that long to live. That urgency, Gary’s urgency in life, drives much of what happens in Licorice Pizza and while Alana is a big part of that urgent rush toward experience, it's a part of a larger whole life that Gary is trying to have in the span of about a year.

Naturally, the idea of squeezing everything you can out of life in a short period of time is rendered rather poignant by the fact that Cooper Hoffman is the son of Phillip Seymour Hoffman who himself packed a lot of life into far too short of a life. Cooper Hoffman has some of his dad’s spirit in him, you can see some of Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s impishness in Cooper’s eyes, that wonderfully unique sense of humor, smarter than everyone in the room, but warm enough to let everyone come up to his level. It’s rather embryonic in Cooper Hoffman but it is undeniably there.

Alana Haim is every bit of a match for Cooper Hoffman. Haim has a particular, ineffable quality that I can only describe as the perfect idea of a first crush. Something about her is so accessible and off limits, she’s a distant romantic possibility and completely out of your league all at once. While Gary mythologizes her in his mind, Haim’s particular talent is making Alana fully formed, a specific person, standing apart from Gary’s vision of her and that of director Paul Thomas Anderson who gives Haim all the room in the world to form Alana into a character far more interesting than any mere fantasy.

Licorice Pizza may not have the seriousness of There Will Be Blood or The Master but what it does have is Anderson’s remarkable talent for making anything seem epic and supremely important. The incidents of Licorice Pizza are familiar on a base level from any number of coming of age stories set in the 1970s but Anderson’s style, his use of music and film technique takes that familiar element and expands upon it in ways that feel bigger, more engaging, and dazzling in ways other directors seem incapable of.

Licorice Pizza is a comedy, a coming of age romance, and a sprawling 1970s pastiche all in one glorious, breathtaking package. It’s a great looking movie, it’s a great sounding movie, the soundtrack is epic, and it’s easily the most accessible film of Anderson’s career. Where movies like The Master, There Will Be Blood or Phantom Thread can be daunting in their artististry and their expansive subject matter, Licorice Pizza has a funky, relatable vibe similar to Anderson’s Inherent Vice but without a mystery plot layered in muddy memories and smelling distinctly of weed.

Licorice Pizza opens in theaters nationwide on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2021.

P.S. Keep an eye out for Bradley Cooper’s mind blowing cameo as famed Hollywood producer and gadfly, Jon Peters. Cooper is pure movie star and he brings life to the larger than life Peters in indelible, unforgettable fashion. At one point, Cooper as Peters is in the background of a scene having an epic meltdown only to turn on a dime when he sees an attractive woman. It’s a throwaway gag but Cooper’s performance and the incredible way Anderson shoots the scene makes it a perfect gag, one of the largest and truest laughs in the movie.