Direction: Paul Thomas Anderson
Country: USA
The distinguished writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, 1999; Punch-Drunk Love, 2002; The Master, 2012) returns with a romantic comedy that tells the story of Alana Kane (Alana Haim) and Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman - the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman), two teenagers who, despite the 10-year age gap, fall in love in the San Fernando Valley in the ‘70s.
Whereas Gary is an ambitious child actor and precocious entrepreneur, Alana is a Jewish girl who works for the photography company Tiny Toes. Their relationship is constantly marked by ups and downs, often prickled by jealousy and put to a test by some idiosyncratic appearances that include the untamable producer Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper), the vain Hollywood actor Jack Holden (Sean Penn), and the secretive politician Joel Wachs (Benny Safdie).
Licorice Pizza airs that sense of freedom typical of the Flower Power but fails to satisfy as a narrative. The ninth feature in Anderson’s filmography is meandering and disperse and much less ambitious than his previous films. It’s a complex romantic rollercoaster that occasionally enchants and often disappoints in its multiple childish behaviors and adult poses. There’s so much frivolity going on, but no chemistry between the leads (they literally run like crazy here), little emotion and unremarkable focus. It might well leave you cold in the end.
The nostalgia, however, was so strong for Anderson that he named the film after a former chain of record shops in southern California. This could have been magical if not too thinned out by peculiar isolated situations whose interest oscillate immoderately. It's one of those cases where the intentions are awesome and the result disjointed.
