Movie Review : Licorice Pizza (2021)
When you think of movies and seventies nostalgia, the first movie that’ll come up to mind is Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused. Why wouldn’t it? It’s an iconic film that aptly captures how it felt to be young in a small town and the intoxicating freedom of having your entire life ahead of you. If Dazed and Confused captured what felt good about being young, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza will make you realize (in the best way possible) that you’ve forgotten more than you remember about being a kid.
Licorice Pizza tells the story of Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman), a jovial, hustling, hard-working teenager who falls in love with Alana (Alana Haim), the twenty-five years old school photographer assistant. Despite their age difference, Gary is psychologically older than he seems and Alana is confronted the the brutality of life as a young adult quicker than she would’ve liked, so they get along great. Well… kinda. Some of their dreams collapse and some of their dreams come true as they embrace life to its fullest.
The magic realism of being young
Licorice Pizza is a beautiful movie about being young. It will awaken long-buried feelings that you’ve felt when you hadn’t taken a precise direction with your life. Remember how it felt to want your life to mean something special, but not know exactly how to make it a reality? Gary’s energetic courtship of Alana awakens that in her. Being the middle child of her family, she felt invisible until a high school kid began seeing her for who she is. That awakens her desire to live up to Gary’s vision. To be as special as he sees her.
Say what you want, but I know a thing or two about being loved and this is what being loved feels like. It makes you want to be the person you’re being perceived to be. Licorice Pizza has little to do with realism. Gary is a successful, business-owning teenager, which doesn’t even make sense within the economy of the film. How the fuck does he gets his ideas financed? I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter, because Licorice Pizza has to be taken allegorically. Life gets better for people when they’re loved.
This is why I think Licorice Pizza is such a beautiful and satisfying experience. It’s a testimony to what can happen when somebody truly sees you. How having someone rooting for you and sharing their magic with you can alter your existence. Both Gary and Alana feed each other’s magic and despite growing pains, they both find purpose and direction. If you’re in love or know what it feels like to be in love with someone who loves you back, you’re going to enjoy the shit out of this movie. It "gets" it.
Movies & Reality
Another aspect of Licorice Pizza that makes is special is Paul Thomas Anderson’s metacommentary on movies. The characters are living in Los Angeles and both try to get involved with the movie business. One of the most beautiful scenes involve Alana being courted by a Frank Sinatra figure (Sean Penn) who ends up getting drunk at a restaurant and recreating a stunt from one of his movies on a nearby golf course. The stunt is successful, but the aging actor ends up dropping Alana from his motorcycle.
The illusion of movies enraptures the restaurant patrons for the evening, but Alana is brutally left out of it. There’s the illusion and its practical underpinnings, which both exist in the same reality despite no one noticing it. Same goes for Bradley Cooper’s interpretation of famed producer Jon Peters. He’s a larger-than-life character who lives in two realities at the same time. Peter is somewhat of a running gag in Licorice Pizza, but the point he makes is good: movies can transform reality.
They are extremely powerful.
*
I really loved Licorice Pizza, in the same exact way I really love Paul Thomas Anderson’s movies. It’s slick, gorgeous and profound. It’s a very simple and contemplative movie for Anderson’s standards, but it doesn’t really matter. Does it? It exists in a paradigm of its own, in-between imaginary paradigms movies have gotten us used to. It’s a unique and rewarding experience, like all of PTA’s movies. Not sure where it would rank in his filmography, but watch it. Just watch it. It’ll make you feel great.
