"Licorice Pizza"

"Licorice Pizza", written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, was released at Christmas and has been getting Oscar buzz and making many critics' Best Ten lists for 2021, so it was one that I definitely wanted to see.

It is a coming-of-age story of sorts set in the San Fernando Valley of greater Los Angeles area during the Nixon Administration, when oil embargoes were put in place, and there were long lines to get gas for your car.  Remember those good ol' days?

The story revolves around 15 year old Gary (Cooper Hoffman, son of Phillip Seymour Hoffman), a high school student and a semi-star child actor who meets and falls for 24 year old Alana (Alana Haim), a wannabe actress who Gary meets when she comes to his school as an assistant to the photographer who is there to take school pictures.  Naturally, Alana tells the little punk to buzz off, and naturally, this only fuels Gary's ardor.  The two then form an odd partnership as Gary hustles his way into different business ventures (his acting career seems to have gone into the tank after he hit puberty): selling waterbeds, opening a pinball emporium, filming videos for political candidates, trying to get Alana acting gigs.  When does the kid ever go to school?

It's a fairly sweet story made notable by several oddball characters: an American friend of Gary's family who owns a Japanese restaurant, a female casting agent who continually harps on Alana's "Jewish nose", and Bradley Cooper as real life person and total off-the-wall whack job Jon Peters at the time when he was Barbra Streisand's boyfriend.  (Was Peters really like that?)  There is also a city councilman running for Mayor of LA who is trying to hide the fact that he is gay, and co-opts Alana, who is volunteering for the campaign, to act as a beard for his relationship with his partner.  It is a pivital scene in the movie, and it again highlights the best part of the movie, the character of Alana and how she is portrayed by Haim.  The scene of her navigating an an out-of-gas truck backwards down the twisting roads of her San Fernando Valley town is terrific.

I liked the movie, but I'm not sure that it is an Oscar worthy movie.  Cute and entertaining, but not a masterpiece.

Two and One-half Stars from The Grandstander.

 Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman