San Fernando Valley, 1 9 7 3. Gary (15), an aspiring actor who starred in a small role in a TV show, befriends photography assistant Alana (25) on whom he has a crush on, but she keeps him at distance since she thinks he is too young for her. They go into waterbed business, yet it goes belly up after the oil crisis makes vynil too expensive; Alana tries to be an actress, yet later becomes a campaigner of a politician running for Mayor, whereas Gary opens up a pinball store after the game gets legalized. Alana and Gary return to each other and become a couple.
One of Paul Thomas Anderson’s lesser films, “Licorice Pizza” (a weird title considering that a pizza doesn’t even appear in the story) is a gentle, cozy, humorous, but also lukewarm coming-of-age rom-com combined with nostalgia movies. Overall, it is good, but at the end of the day one ultimately has more nostalgia for the lost touch of Anderson’s earlier movies, when he established himself as one of the best and most inspired new filmmakers of his time. The only truly great ingredient here is the excellent leading actress Alana Haim, who is genuine and charming in her refreshing performance, while everything else is good, yet never really rises to her level. It seems as if Anderson placed three different stories together here, which makes the storyline uneven: we go from Gary and Alana working in the waterbed business; being struggling actors; up to Alana working for an election campaign of a politician who is secretly gay. Unfortunately, many subplots thus feel lost and lead nowhere—for instance, Alana pursued a role in a movie with star Jack Holden, yet he suddenly disappears and never appears again in the story, while Alana’s acting career is never brought up again, nor does it play a role for the rest of the plot, which is confusing. The episodic narrative hits the field once in the episode involving the arrogant producer Jon (Bradley Cooper) where Alana and Gary leave the water running at the former's bedroom as revenge, and then Gary even smashes the windshield on Jon's car, yet just then, Alana's and Gary's truck runs out of gas, and they realize they cannot flee from the scene. The movie needed more of these kind of moments, or a more focused approach towards the relationship of the couple, since in this edition it looks more like a showreel for the two lead actors.
Grade:++
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