What, if they could screen it, would Paul Thomas Anderson’s earlier characters make of Licorice Pizza, the writer-director’s ninth feature film and the frothiest ode to mercantilism since Tom Hanks pitched to FAO Schwarz in 1988’s Big? Daniel Plainview, the ruthless antihero of There Will Be Blood, might thrill to the picture’s entrepreneurial energy but bemoan the lack of dirt under its fingernails. The cast of Boogie Nights would dig the 1970s San Fernando Valley vibe but blush at the movie’s indifference to less savory sources of profit. Of all Anderson’s creations, perhaps only Lancaster Dodd, the counterfeit cultist at the heart of The Master, would understand the film perfectly. Dodd may have been an appalling fraud, but he of all people would recognize the winning grin of a born salesman.
The commercial genius who dominates Licorice Pizza’s goings-on is one Gary Valentine, an intrepid overachiever whom viewers first encounter at the tender age of 15. Played by newcomer Cooper Hoffman (son of the late, lamented Philip Seymour), Gary is a figure of such boundless confidence that one imagines him running for class president on a platform of winning the war in Vietnam. The year is 1973, and California seethes with pre-recession vitality. Why shouldn’t Gary, a former child actor despite his trollish mien, parlay his capitalist zeal into a thriving waterbed business, as, in short order, he does?
Joining Gary in his exploits is the movie’s second center of gravity, an unconventional beauty by the name of Alana Kane. As rendered by the indie vocalist (and screen-acting novice) Alana Haim, Licorice Pizza’s heroine occupies an unusual position in the film’s cosmology. A full-fledged woman 10 years Gary’s senior, Alana is at once a business partner, muse, and forbidden inamorata. Though Anderson is careful to portray his leads as intellectual equals, their age difference is nonetheless a hitch in his younger protagonist’s plans. “Do you think it’s weird that I hang out with Gary and his friends all the time?” a worried Alana asks her sister. A little bit, yes.
Examined through a modern lens, Licorice Pizza’s plot-defining romance is indeed a strange one. Having met at a high school yearbook shoot, where Alana is working as a photographer’s assistant, the film’s leads launch a relationship that is generally chaste but flush with erotic potential. Complicating an already knotty situation is Gary’s startling precocity, which might, in purely narrative terms, give license to a whole host of illicit behaviors. Are we, the audience, meant to throw up our hands and declare the past a foreign country, exempt from the standards of our time? Yes and no. Anderson’s film contains, to its immense artistic credit, not even a shadow of finger-wagging. Yet the director plainly understands that he must work within the bounds of contemporary taste if he intends to create a work of popular entertainment.
If the resulting balancing act never quite reaches the heights of Anderson’s finest pictures, Licorice Pizza is nevertheless a joyful theatrical experience and the most charming movie of its creator’s career by a mile. That this is so is due, in large part, to what might in lesser hands have constituted a handicap: the necessity of cloaking the movie’s sexuality in comic attire. Consider, for example, a priceless scene in which Gary encourages Alana to use her femininity as a telemarketing asset. Though the hilariously lustful sales call that follows produces a satisfied customer (“You sound like you just sold a water bed!”), its true function is to serve as a kind of consummation. Never before has Gary beheld Alana’s unbridled carnality, and the effect is to drive him deeper into adolescent distraction.
Like Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, a film to which it owes no small debt, Licorice Pizza is at its best when surveying this meeting place of enterprise and amour. Just as Rushmore’s Max Fischer sees his projects in terms both mercenary and romantic, so Gary recognizes that his “hotshot” persona is among the chief drivers of Alana’s interest. The difference, to the extent that one exists, is that Gary is at least as excited by pecuniary success as he is by romantic courtship. When, late in the movie, Alana volunteers for a political campaign and learns that pinball will soon be legalized, Gary immediately sets about buying every machine in town. Passion, meet profiteering.
Punctuating Anderson’s song of labor and love are a number of set pieces notable primarily for their comic absurdity. In one, an ambitious Alana meets with Gary’s agent having determined to answer every question, no matter how outlandish, in the affirmative. (Look for the resulting back-and-forth on Haim’s Oscar reel.) In another, a water bed delivery gone wrong kicks off the slow-speed chase of the century through hilly, gas-crisis Los Angeles. Though Harriet Sansom Harris and Bradley Cooper are terrific in the aforementioned scenes, Sean Penn and Benny Safdie do yeoman’s work elsewhere in the movie to excellent effect. Consistently a master of ensemble casting, Anderson’s latest has talent to match anything he’s ever put out.
Yet, despite its exemplary supporting turns, Licorice Pizza belongs indisputably to Hoffman and Haim, two of the most appealing debut stars since Ben Affleck and Matt Damon burst on to the scene with Good Will Hunting in 1997. To be sure, neither of Anderson’s leads possesses the unthreatening loveliness that smooths an actor’s Hollywood journey. Nevertheless, it’s easy to imagine fruitful careers for both performers, so compelling is their onscreen charisma. As Gary, Hoffman is simultaneously likable and ridiculous, a feat that brings to mind (but surpasses) Adam Sandler’s effort in Anderson’s previous romantic comedy, Punch-Drunk Love. Haim’s work as Alana, meanwhile, is simply revelatory. If 2021 boasted a better performance by a female lead, I can’t recall it.
Graham Hillard teaches English and creative writing at Trevecca Nazarene University.
