"Licorice Pizza" -- Movie Review

 

This week at Lincoln Center, I attended a special screening of the award-nominated romantic comedy “Licorice Pizza”, which featured a 35mm print as well as a post-screening interview with the director and several cast members. 

Synopsis

When a teenage boy falls in love with a young woman, will their age difference keep them apart?

Story

In the early 1970’s, poor Gary (Cooper Hoffman) gets hit directly in the heart; even though he’s only a 15-year-old high school student, he already knows he’s met the love of his life.  Unfortunately for him, the love of his life happens to be Alana (Alana Haim) – an adorable young woman who’s about a decade older.  Dauntless, Gary pursues her, despite the fact that she looks down on him because he’s so much younger.  Inexplicably – especially to Alana – she is drawn to him.  You can’t explain this kind of thing, so don’t even bother trying.  Young love is what it is and you just have to ride the wave to wherever it goes.

Together, Alana and Gary pursue a life like no other; the adventures they experience and the people they meet are, shall we say, “unique”.  The two introduce each other to aspects of life neither likely would have seen had they not met.  Whether they know it or not, they are beginning to understand what makes each other an incredibly special person.  He’s an actor, but also wants so much more – to start and run his own business, to make money without necessarily being dependent on someone else.  He encourages her to go outside of her own comfort zone by doing such things as delving into an acting career as he has. 

They become business partners in a waterbed company until circumstances bring an abrupt end.  Alana finds an interest in politics when a local mayoral candidate captures her imagination; she tries to get Gary involved, but he only sees business opportunities rather than the ideological policies.  As a result, they wind up parting ways – Alana to fight for her own political beliefs and Gary to find the quickest way to become wealthy.  What neither one wants to acknowledge, however – at least until it’s brought to their attention by a mutual acquaintance – is that each of them complements the other.  Can they overcome their differences in order to find their destiny as a couple?     

Review

Once you get past the alluring Alana Haim (which, it should be stated, is no easy task) and the excellent soundtrack (which will make you awash with memories, at least if you are of a certain age), what else is there?  Well, there’s certainly the charming love story between Alana and Gary and the crazy adventures and varied oddball characters they encounter during their on-again/off-again romance.  In between, however, it’s a scattered story that seems to lack focus and a strong narrative spine, despite the adoration the critics have bestowed upon this film; it’s all over the place and you get the sense that you’re watching the Director’s Cut Version rather than the final cut of the released motion picture. 

One of the things that keeps the viewer engaged in “Licorice Pizza” is the performance by Alana Haim.  Here, Haim portrays a young woman with precious little sense of direction in her life; she is desperately in search of discovering the woman she must become.  Although considerably older than Gary, she is not necessarily the more mature of the two; while he has a strong entrepreneurial sense, she comes across as more of a follower than a leader.  With Gary, she tries to seem a real boss who’s in charge of every situation – but she gets set straight by him when he reminds her that without him, her life would be less interesting.   

Following the screening, there was an interview with writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson and cast members Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman and Ben Safdie.  The most obvious question:  why the title, especially since it was never clearly explained in the movie?  Anderson said that he wasn’t sure what to call the film; initially, he was going to title it “Soggy Bottom”, a reference to something in the story.  Ultimately, he wound up with “Licorice Pizza” because it was the name of a popular record store in that area during this time.  It appealed to him because they are two words that don’t make sense, but when put together, remind you of pleasant childhood memories.