Licorice Pizza. (15.)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Starring Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Bradley Cooper, Benny Safdie, Sean Penn and Tom Waits. 133 mins. In cinemas January 1st.
2022 begins with its worst movie title for one of its best films. Since There Will Be Blood firmly established him as the top Hollywood film artist of his time, PT Anderson’s output has been predominantly useless masterpieces; magnificent pieces of filmmaking that most people didn’t connect with. The Master or Phantom Thread are dazzling works but you may leave the cinema thinking, “Yeah, but so what?” They've got something for sure but it’s kind of slipped right past you and it makes you doubt yourself. Is it him or me? (With Inherent Vice, on the other hand, you’re on safer ground because it clearly doesn’t work.) For an hour I thought his tale of first love in San Fernando Valley in the early 70s was going to be another one but this time PTA lets you in.
Most Anderson films have a tunnel vision, barrel-chested sense of momentum. They are restless, always on the move and when they start the audience often feels like they are joining something that has been going on for a good few hours already, that has already hit its stride and doesn't much care if you can match or not. The blue eruptions of lens flair and discordant percussive soundtracks are there to further test your commitment. Licorice Pizza has all of that but it's funnier and warmer than his previous films and has great performances. Even so, it isn’t exactly love’s young dream.
Gary Valentine (Hoffman), a 15-year-old high school student, falls for Alana (Haim) a girl ten years older than him. Gary is no ordinary teenager; he's a child actor in a hit TV show and budding entrepreneur always looking for fresh ventures (water beds, pinball) to break into. Alana though is reluctant to succumb to his charms. Their, never fully off nor on, relationship takes place on the peripheries of Hollywood stardom. They cross paths with stars such as Penn playing a version of William Holden, Waits as a fictional big shot director (possibly John Huston) and Bradley Cooper as the actual Jon Peters, celebrity hairdresser/ Barbra Streisand boyfriend who would go to be a major Hollywood producer (Batman.)
They don’t stay long but these big-name cameos, that hit around the halfway mark, really lift the film. Penn and Waits are an inspired pairing; a slightly sleazy, comfortably jaded movie star is the part Penn was born to play. You’re reminded why he was once considered something special. Bradley Cooper’s performance though as the crazed, libidinous Peters is the hilarious standout – the scene where he repeatedly corrects Gary’s pronunciation of Streisand made me laugh louder and harder than anything else in a cinema in 2021.
The two leads though are quite remarkable, especially as both are more or less acting for the first time. Haim is a bullet-nippled dynamo with a middle-aged face. Stocky, spotty and with a pudding bowl haircut, Hoffman seems like he was born to play Brian Wilson. I was wondering why such an ungainly looking youth would be cast as the lead in a major motion picture and then halfway through it occurred to me that he looked just like the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman. I felt very pleased with myself for this piece of astute critical analysis until I found out, afterwards, that he was Hoffman’s son. Then I felt offended on his behalf – didn’t his mother’s genes kick in anything to the mix? It’s not fair to look That much like your father, any father. Still, at least he appears to have got the talent along with the looks.
It’s a breezy affair, drawn from memory; this is a trip down memory lane, PTA’s youth recaptured, though the majority of it is based on a friend’s, rather than his own, recollections. Beyond nostalgia, it is a portrait of the sexism of the time, plus the first signs of how ruinous our dependence on fossil fuels would be, (the 1973 Oil Crisis is a backdrop to part of the action) but these are allowed to chunter away in the background. PTA is comfortable with the notion of the past being a different time, offered up for observation rather than judgement.
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Starring Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Bradley Cooper, Benny Safdie, Sean Penn and Tom Waits. 133 mins. In cinemas January 1st.
2022 begins with its worst movie title for one of its best films. Since There Will Be Blood firmly established him as the top Hollywood film artist of his time, PT Anderson’s output has been predominantly useless masterpieces; magnificent pieces of filmmaking that most people didn’t connect with. The Master or Phantom Thread are dazzling works but you may leave the cinema thinking, “Yeah, but so what?” They've got something for sure but it’s kind of slipped right past you and it makes you doubt yourself. Is it him or me? (With Inherent Vice, on the other hand, you’re on safer ground because it clearly doesn’t work.) For an hour I thought his tale of first love in San Fernando Valley in the early 70s was going to be another one but this time PTA lets you in.
Most Anderson films have a tunnel vision, barrel-chested sense of momentum. They are restless, always on the move and when they start the audience often feels like they are joining something that has been going on for a good few hours already, that has already hit its stride and doesn't much care if you can match or not. The blue eruptions of lens flair and discordant percussive soundtracks are there to further test your commitment. Licorice Pizza has all of that but it's funnier and warmer than his previous films and has great performances. Even so, it isn’t exactly love’s young dream.
Gary Valentine (Hoffman), a 15-year-old high school student, falls for Alana (Haim) a girl ten years older than him. Gary is no ordinary teenager; he's a child actor in a hit TV show and budding entrepreneur always looking for fresh ventures (water beds, pinball) to break into. Alana though is reluctant to succumb to his charms. Their, never fully off nor on, relationship takes place on the peripheries of Hollywood stardom. They cross paths with stars such as Penn playing a version of William Holden, Waits as a fictional big shot director (possibly John Huston) and Bradley Cooper as the actual Jon Peters, celebrity hairdresser/ Barbra Streisand boyfriend who would go to be a major Hollywood producer (Batman.)
They don’t stay long but these big-name cameos, that hit around the halfway mark, really lift the film. Penn and Waits are an inspired pairing; a slightly sleazy, comfortably jaded movie star is the part Penn was born to play. You’re reminded why he was once considered something special. Bradley Cooper’s performance though as the crazed, libidinous Peters is the hilarious standout – the scene where he repeatedly corrects Gary’s pronunciation of Streisand made me laugh louder and harder than anything else in a cinema in 2021.
The two leads though are quite remarkable, especially as both are more or less acting for the first time. Haim is a bullet-nippled dynamo with a middle-aged face. Stocky, spotty and with a pudding bowl haircut, Hoffman seems like he was born to play Brian Wilson. I was wondering why such an ungainly looking youth would be cast as the lead in a major motion picture and then halfway through it occurred to me that he looked just like the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman. I felt very pleased with myself for this piece of astute critical analysis until I found out, afterwards, that he was Hoffman’s son. Then I felt offended on his behalf – didn’t his mother’s genes kick in anything to the mix? It’s not fair to look That much like your father, any father. Still, at least he appears to have got the talent along with the looks.
It’s a breezy affair, drawn from memory; this is a trip down memory lane, PTA’s youth recaptured, though the majority of it is based on a friend’s, rather than his own, recollections. Beyond nostalgia, it is a portrait of the sexism of the time, plus the first signs of how ruinous our dependence on fossil fuels would be, (the 1973 Oil Crisis is a backdrop to part of the action) but these are allowed to chunter away in the background. PTA is comfortable with the notion of the past being a different time, offered up for observation rather than judgement.
