Licorice Pizza
MGM/Focus FeaturesSome would say that Licorice Pizza jumps on the bandwagon of nostalgic, meta-textual storytelling akin to Quentin Tarantino’s most recent opus Once upon a Time in Hollywood, but such an analysis would be at best incomplete. In a way, Paul Thomas Anderson, who wrote and directed it, has come full circle having spent recent years dabbling with period drama (Phantom Thread) and adapting the unadaptable (Inherent Vice). His newest feature is much more than timely attempt at capitalising on the recent trends.
Inspired by something Anderson witnessed while walking past a school some twenty years ago, filtered through his own childhood recollections, bolstered by tonal period accuracy and embroidered with a hefty helping of skilfully placed pop-cultural references to cinematic classics of the era such as Taxi Driver, American Graffiti or Harold and Maude, Licorice Pizza is at its very core a perennial coming-of-age tale about a young fifteen-year-old hustler-in-the-making Gary (Cooper Hoffman) and his attempts to woo Alana (Alana Haim), a twenty-five-year-old woman who works as a photographer’s assistant at Gary’s school. The filmmaker follows the two as they fall into one another’s orbit and – like human electrons – develop a relationship that is primarily characterised by mutual electrostatic repulsion underpinned by an inherent need to stay with each other’s proximity despite the fact the forces of nature are geared to keep them apart.
In fact, it is likely improper to characterise Licorice Pizza as a conventional tale in the first place, as it doesn’t place firm emphasis on progressing its narrative or simply telling a story. Instead, like Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused or the aforementioned American Graffiti, Anderson’s film favours tone over narrative pacing. It is, by all accounts, a hangout movie meticulously designed to transport the viewer – with the aid of Gary and Alana’s intermediacy – into the world of 1973, or more specifically into 1973 as the filmmaker remembers it.
Interestingly, human memory is a sneaky instrument which has absolutely no qualms with replacing factual record-keeping with figments of its own creation, substitute real events with projected memories or even with elements of popular culture absorbed at the time. Thus, Licorice Pizza functions best as a hybrid creation between a bonafide love letter to the era the filmmaker is referencing and an attempt to capture the milieu of that time that he most assuredly holds close to his heart. It is a fascinating medley of pop-cultural references spliced into elements of historical fiction, woven around a wholly manufactured narrative core and anchored around a setting of Paul Thomas Anderson has intimate knowledge of tracing all the way to his own childhood. Although it is possible to compartmentalise it and strategically focus on its constituent elements in isolation, it is best to simply let the movie wash over you, because its main thesis is not so much to tell a love story, check off a bunch of visual cues to classics of cinema, navigate through the filmmaker’s own past work, or pore over California’s rich history, as it is to invite the viewer to abandon a rational approach and allow themselves to co-exist with the characters and inhabit their world for a little while; which is more than possible.
This, if anything, is a mark of artistic genius Paul Thomas Anderson has been long praised for commanding, and in fact it might be that Licorice Pizza elevates his craft and storytelling ingenuity to a whole new echelon of timelessness and showcases his directorial maturity. His newest film is a light-hearted, touching and highly cerebral time capsule that transports the viewer into the filmmaker’s headspace and allows them to bask in his own appreciation to the era he finds formative to his later emergence as the Orson Welles of our time. In doing so, he severely curtails his own long-standing proclivities for flashy Scorsese-esque long takes, Demme-like close-ups and formal quirks in favour of retaining tonal immersion and removing the artificial boundary between the audience and the screen.
Even though some viewers might squirm uncomfortably at the thought of the seemingly insurmountable age gap between Alana and Gary despite their impeccable chemistry and amazingly raw comedic timing – a nod in its own right to Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude – it is nowhere near enough to cause detriment to the entire experience, which is quirky, comedic, loaded with respectful homage and steeped in the culture in a beautifully personal way. And if this all isn’t enough, one can always marvel at a perfect stealth re-enactment of an underrated scene from Taxi Driver, Sean Penn as a stand-in for William Holden riding a bike while drunk, Bradley Cooper’s unhinged take on Jon Peters and a mesmerising sequence in which Alana Haim reverses a massive truck down a hill while looking like an absolute superhero. In short, there’s something for everyone in Licorice Pizza, from next-level direction to organic performances, stellar characterizations, and a truly Linklater-esque hangout tone.
