Licorice Pizza (2021)
Has Paul Thomas Anderson fallen in Punch Drunk Love again?
Licorice Pizza is Paul Thomas Anderson’s ninth cinematic offering and should you wish to delve into his back catalogue from his first film Sydney (AKA Hard Eight) in 1996 through to The Master in 2012 there’s a link at the bottom of this article to the very first film blog I ever wrote and which is now a masterly 10 years old! Inherent Vice followed 2 years after The Master and was a patchy, surrealist showcase for a quirky and beautifully strange performance from Joaquin Phoenix before 2017’s Phantom Thread was just simply a masterpiece and Daniel Day-Lewis nearing his thunderous performance in a previous PT Anderson picture, There Will Be Blood, in 2007. These 9 films span a quarter of a century and of those not previously named you also have a porn star and a thriving porn industry, raining frogs, Tom Cruise as a Sex Guru and the entire cast of his incredible film Magnolia all singing along to the Aimee Mann song “Wise Up” before the rain clears and the frogs fall from the sky! In the midst of all this came a film 19 years ago entitled Punch Drunk Love and if I didn’t obsess over and adore Magnolia so much I’d venture that his 2002 ode to awkward love in a baffling world would be my overall favourite Paul Thomas Anderson film, and it’s one of the many reasons why I adore Licorice Pizza so.
His latest film is so eerily reminiscent of his classic 2002 tale of angry, unrequited and misguided (Punch Drunk) love but whereas 19 years ago a rarely ever better Adam Sandler was the angry, bewildered and repressed loner who fell blindly in love with the quiet and stoically happy character so brilliantly portrayed by Emily Watson, here the roles and sexes are reversed.
“Alana Kane” (Alana Haim). An almost mirror image to the “Barry Egan” character so well portrayed by Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love 19 years ago, the gender may differ but the repressed angst, anxiety and desire for liberation from an all consuming and suffocating family is writ large in Alana’s towering performance. Nominally 25 years old and questioning the veracity and wisdom of hanging around with children 10 years+ her junior, nothing is clear surrounding the circumstances of Alana’s life or indeed her actual name which is cut off amid a crucial and hilarious motorbike stunt mid-way through the film. She doesn’t appear or act 25, so how old is she really?
And what’s her real name?
What is abundantly clear is that Alana is stifled within a strictly religious family, by her gaggle of sisters and by her day job as a photographer’s assistant within a child acting talent agency (of sorts) in a 1973 California at the tail end of the “Summer of Love”, the beginning of yet another oil and gas crisis and toward the end of the Presidency of Richard Nixon. Alana is a budding actress herself but her frustrations and angst are constantly bubbling to the surface (ala Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love) and as her anger builds so too does her antipathy toward a family she tries to avoid and a budding love affair she refuses to accept.
Awkward, unsure of herself and with actions belying her true nature let alone her supposed true age or name, Alana Haim’s portrayal is simply wonderful.
“Gary Valentine” (Cooper Hoffman). Son of the dearly missed Philip Seymour Hoffman (and oft returnee to a Paul Thomas Anderson film over his entire, highly prized career), Cooper Hoffman portrays 15 year old Gary Valentine akin to Emily Watson’s performance of “Lena Leonard” in Punch Drunk Love. Both are permanently smiling, happy and at ease with a world they don’t completely understand but have taken by it’s tail and are wiggling it with a real verve for exploration, joy and with the freedom of innocence. Hoffman is magnificent as the young teenage actor who revels in the art of acting, in jokes and when one door closes he opens another in an entrepreneurial way again, like Alana, that belies his age. With both Alana and his gaggle of family and friends he opens a waterbed company at the height of it’s craze before diversifying into a rejuvenated market for pinball and arcade machines but always with at least one eye on the object of his unrequited love, and someone with whom he promises to marry one day and maybe he will.
The path of true love never runs smooth, even within the dying embers of a summer of love that appears long since forgotten with the USA on the brink of an energy crisis and a disastrous war (sound familiar anyone?). But Hoffman’s innocent smiles and warm exterior light up a childish infatuation that runs far deeper than would appear at first glance and the chemistry between the two main stars propel a film that disappears into so many tangential areas whilst keeping you fixed on the central theme of love throughout. Follow Hoffman’s smiles here and you may surprise yourself at how much you begin to love this beautiful film.
Surprisingly, I only noted one returnee from a previous PT Anderson film this time (his films are normally littered with returning stars from previous films) and it’s perhaps apt that the only returnee is a very brief cameo from the magnificent John C Reilly as Fred Gwynne/Herman Munster of Addams Family fame. But this sets the tone for a cast of supporting roles that are as bizarre as you come to expect from a PT Anderson film: Sean Penn stars as actor/director “Jack Holden” who in league with Tom Waits’ film director character “Rex Blau” bring much levity and strangeness in surreal abundance! Penn is lecherous and perhaps a little past his acting prime whereas Waits infuses his aged director with a Hunter S Thompson style of sheer anarchy and mischievousness. In league with a Politician running for Congress and trying desperately to hide his sexuality you also have a huge cast (including both the director’s and Alana Haim’s family as well as Leonardo Di Caprio’s Father) portraying varying Hollywood era style roles from producers, directors and talent agency scouts. Topping off a huge supporting cast is Bradley Cooper as film producer, and very proud boyfriend, of Barbra Streisand! Here again is another eerie call back to Punch Drunk Love, as well as Cooper’s performance in Silver Linings Playbook as he enthuses his character here with unhinged, desperate and frightening anger that is off the charts and brilliantly summed up in regular call back flashes as he struggles, along with everyone else, to simply fill his expensive car with much needed petrol. Spoilers do not allow for further exploration of his cameo but it’s brilliantly anarchic and frighteningly desperate.
There are further call backs to Punch Drunk Love (a bed retailer) and an awkward comedy quota that is particularly high but also particularly and peculiarly seen through the prism of Paul Thomas Anderson’s cinematic lens and loving eyes. The “hand job” quote is a throwaway line in a toilet scene that shocks Alana to the core, as does her reaction to her Father’s outrage that her latest boyfriend simply isn’t Jewish enough and you have to be invested in the characters to get the rationale for the in jokes and throwaway comedic lines. But as with the constantly referenced Punch Drunk Love, as well as Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Inherent Vice, you will be invested in these based on real life characters and if you believe in the central strand to the whole shebang, the love story that beats out of the collective chests of Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman, you may love this film as much as I did.
The soundtrack is an ode to the early 1970’s with tracks from The Doors and David Bowie pleasing this particular music fan but what pleased me the most was the sheer energy, joy and freedom writ large weaved into yet another love story penned and shot by a magnificent film director of this, and any other generation you care to name. Should you fancy regressing to your teenage years amid a 70s soundtrack, a cast of characters who will put a smile firmly on your face and remember those halcyon days of infatuation and first loves, this is the film for you.
