Review of Licorice Pizza (2021)

 Hearing the Sirens

Review of Licorice Pizza

“And you climb up the mountains and you fall down the holes” 

• Song All The Way From Memphis, Mott The Hoople

“Everyone has the right to make an ass out of themselves. You just can't let the world judge you too much” 

• Maude, from Harold & Maude

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter”

• Mark Twain

Licorice Pizza, Paul Taylor Anderson’s latest feature, arrived in the midst of a seemingly never-ending pandemic. The talented director chooses optimism over despair and delivers a heart-felt paean to young lovers. This is a very personal film. It is set in the early 1970s when the writer/director came of age. Every artist struggles with presenting the passion of intimacy without losing an audience to the opaqueness of a private language. This is especially challenging for mature filmmakers who are past fretting about disapproving producers. Licorice Pizza is a qualified success. It shows Anderson’s strengths in working with actors and capturing the zeitgeist of youth, LA and the 1970s. Unfortunately it stumbles in an odd, meandering way. It is as if you asked a parent about their grown children and they gave a detailed description of the neighborhood where they grew up. It’s a great response that has nothing to do with the question.

At the heart of Anderson’s drama is a perfect couple. That’s the problem. Cooper Hoffman is magnificent as Gary. Alana Haim nails the part of Alana. They are magical together. Why aren’t they together? He is 15 and she is in her 20s. Certainly this would be a challenge, even more so in the the previous decade. Unfortunately this gap doesn’t play on screen. He seems older and she appears younger, undermining the perception of the impossibility of a romance. At one point Alana literally voices to her sister/confidante that she feels uncomfortable hanging out with Gary and his younger crowd. It is as if the writer/director needs to reinforce the central plot point.The words fail to convince. Without the impediment to true love the interactions become rehearsed, rather than felt. Gary, the supposed 15 year old, manages the adult tasks of forming businesses, hanging out in bars, managing clients, securing acting parts with the aplomb of a polished adult. The public, especially their crowd, would not frown upon their union. This isn’t the startling age gap exhibited by the patron saints of odd-ball romantic comedy, the 10 year old Harold and his elderly mentor, Maude from the eponymous Harold and Maude. But even given the supposed impossibility of being a couple, Anderson fails to reign-in the seduction of “cool” asides.  The central characters drift into a different film that tries to capture the wider world. 

The concise, unadorned moments in Licorice Pizza are superb. We see the young couple facing the trials of early adulthood without the noise of larger statements about the 70s entertainment industry. Gary goes on an audition and faces the smiling sociopaths who hire aspiring child actors. The glances between the casting director and the producer tell a million stories.  In another sequence Gary tries to have his agent take an interest in Alana. This is a sublime portrayal of the harshness of an industry where the callow, obsequious, success-hungry wannabes are played by indifferent, capricious seasoned pros.  At one moment the elderly agent seems as if she will take out a knife and cut Alana to bits, then comes a seamless pivot to laughter and compliments. No doubt being a child star can be exhilarating, as exhibited by the New York City showcase visit. However, even in this frolicking riot of fun the dark side is apparent.  The mature star turns on Gary for his prank. You can’t help thinking how it would have turned out had the handlers not been around to stop her physical assault. Furthermore this diva has the air of a grudge-holder. Will there be longterm consequences? Contrast these crisp show-business portraits with the overwrought introduction of Jon Peters and the sequences involving Sean Penn and Tom Waits. These figures would have been more appropriate to Boogie Nights.  Anderson’s sweeping portrait of the LA skin trade was a sprawling feast of decadence. Licorice Pizza is supposed to be an intimate love story… or wants to be. The asides cloud us getting to know Gary and Alana. The film becomes a disjointed soup of interesting moments that never coalesces. The audience yearns for the conciseness of Anderson’s debut feature, Hard 8. That gritty love story revolves around a young, down and out, couple on the fringes of the Las Vegas casinos. Their struggles stir passion. Licorice Pizza produces wry smiles. Despite the fine acting and directing, the final reunion of Gary and Alana gets a thumbs up, rather than a tear. Anderson’s other romantic comedy, Punch Drunk Love, has the same problem. The romance is lost to the pyrotechnics of a wild plot line which includes a manufacturer of toilet plungers squaring off against thugs sent by a phone sex operator. 

At the heart of Licorice Pizza is the confusion about the central storyline. Is this about the couple, or the era? At times the audience is left with the impression that this film starts where Tarantino left off in his panoramic sweep of 60s LA, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Anderson is a far superior director and even the mis-steps make for a fun trip. Unfortunately the director commits the same crime as the absent guardians of latchkey kids. The parents vanish and the children are left to fend for themselves. Gary and Alana’s mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters disappear and we are left with waterbeds, pinball machines, closeted politicians and flashy movie stars. It’s entertaining but distracting. Their final reunion becomes a simple beat, rather than a crescendo. The audience needed more quiet time. There is a brilliant, silent,  moment involving Gary, in a pique of jealousy, calling Alana at her house. She is dating a rival actor and our hero is heartbroken. They are both in their homes. Gary is babysitting his brother and Alana is surrounded by the constant din of her sisters. Nothing and everything happens. Gary is completely quiet and simply listens as the confused Alana hangs on the phone. It is a scene that outshines all the slick cameos and outlandish set-ups. Something real was at stake. Too often Anderson’s resorts to Disney-esque adventurism and the couple’s escapes lack an edge. A mirror example, that exhibits the much needed tension, is the seminal 70s feature, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. The audience is absorbed in the believable money struggles facing an itinerant single mother and her young son. Homelessness and poverty hover at every turn, despite many funny moments. Contrast comic-book untouchability  of Gary and Alana. Even when he is apprehended by the police, one of the few genuinely harrowing moments, the danger evaporates in minutes without explanation. Alana arrives. All is good. The families are nowhere to be seen. The couple continues on their way, as if they were Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in a 1940s Andy Hardy film. It’s catchy fun, rather than heartfelt emotion. 

Perhaps Licorice Pizza has more resonance but given the body of Anderson’s work, expectations are high. It seems his forte is the wide shot rather than the close up. His searing renderings of zealots, be they in business, religion or fashion, are potent to a fault. ( There Will Be Blood, The Master, Phantom Thread) The exacting expositions of the protagonists’ pathologies make an audience feel they’ve witnessed an autopsy rather than experiencing a life. Licorice Pizza has the opposite problem in erring on the side of frivolity. The balance is struck with the epic portraits of Los Angeles. There is an element of this genius at work in Licorice Pizza. Sadly Gary and Alana’s story seems a weaker version of the many individual sequences from his magnum opus, Magnolia. That film showcases a wide-ranging group of Los Angelenos facing various crisis’. The difference is that Anderson is more fully invested in their stories. The other slices of Licorice Pizza are leftovers from his penultimate achievement, Boogie Nights. Once again the antics of the sad denizens of the porno trade are more carefully delineated than the current offering.  That is not to say the film isn’t worth the time. 

Anderson is a wonderful filmmaker. His achievements are even more impressive in light of the onslaught of serialized action features which have taken over the fading feature film offerings. Licorice Pizza is a welcome entree when the top grossing films this week are The Matrix Resurrections and Spider-Man: No Way Home.  Anderson has something to say and is a superb craftsman. If only if he would resist the siren call of cool distraction. Even the title Licorice Pizza betrays a wandering eye. “Licorice Pizza” is 70s slang for vinyl records. It’s catchy but what does that have to do with the couple at the heart of the drama? Perhaps “Mood Ring” or “Wacky Pack” would have been more appropriate. If you’re not old enough, look up the definitions. Those quintessential 70s items capture the irreverent romantic un-romance of Gary and Alana. Unfortunately Anderson chose the nick-name for an LP. It is fitting. This careful, insightful writer/director lost track of his metaphorical children. It’s a great title, but not for this movie.  Anderson is careless but still manages to deliver a wonderful, nostalgic, reprieve from our current pandemic world. My reaction to the film is summed up by the rock group 10cc in their 1975 smash hit, I’m Not In Love. Take off your mask. Wipe off your hands with alcohol. Think about a more innocent time. Download the song, put in your earbuds… and listen. It’s a wonderful distraction.