“Licorice Pizza” is a love letter to the early 70s, first crushes and to the optimism of youth itself. Stitched together largely from real life vintage experiences of friends of Writer/Director Paul Thomas Anderson (“Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia,” “Inherent Vice”), the film is as charming as its main character Gary, played by Cooper Hoffman (son of PT Anderson film regular Philip Seymour Hoffman).
The endearing story of this 15-year-old San Fernando Valley sweet talker as he learns about love, life and showbiz will have you grinning from ear to ear from beginning to end, especially, but not exclusively, if you are a child of that time.
Hoffman is a natural as a child actor we meet on the day he meets “the woman he will one day marry” in his own words on everyone’s favorite – high school picture day. One problem, she’s an aimless girl in her unspecified early 20s and not easily succumbing to his charms. Stay with me now if you can ignore their age difference, given their subsequent spectacularly chaste romance (even more difficult to do if their genders were reversed), but I understand if you can’t.
Now, Alana Haim, youngest member of the band “Haim,” plays Alana, a name and role written just for her. PT Anderson has directed several Haim videos and saw her acting potential, but then had to convince her of the same. Spoiler alert – Haim is on several short lists for nominations and awards in her ingenue debut.
Haim’s whole family is in the film in fact, all pulling their own weight. Haim’s sisters and bandmates play her sisters and her parents play her parents in some of the funniest scenes. Add to this phenom, the accolades the Hoffman progeny is also garnering in his first role, and casting seems like the key ingredient to the success of “Pizza,” but wait, there’s more!
Superb and prescient casting aside, the story follows Gary as a part-time young actor and full-time hustler, selling everything from waterbeds to pinball machines with the help of what looks like the cast of “The Bad News Bears,” all the while managing his own career, employing his parents and courting Alana with the old school savoir faire of a rat packer.
Alana is sucked into scheme after disco-themed scheme with hilarious results until she realizes she should be doing more adult things, like volunteering in local politics. Unfortunately, there’s nothing more disillusioning than grass roots campaigning, setting up the inevitable satisfying romantic reunion of our leads.
The music of the time is showcased throughout the film in the skillful way we’ve come to expect from Anderson, enhancing the warm feelings this film supplies the audience and invoking obvious comparisons to Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous” (coincidentally starring the senior Hoffman).
I love this next generation of “real people” actors that also includes James Gandolfini’s son Michael and even the Lisa Bonet/Lenny Kravitz mashup that is Zoe Kravitz. Skyler Gisondo from “The Bill Engvall Show” and “The Righteous Gemstones” is a nice addition to this cast as a conceited child actor and unlikely lothario who momentarily enthralls Alana and cameos by the likes of Sean Penn and Bradley Cooper will disappoint no one.
But what is “licorice pizza” anyway? I’ll tell you right now, do not waste time looking for it in the movie. It’s the name of a chain of record stores in California in the 70s – total inside joke. I prefer to think the phrase refers to when two of your favorite things come together to create one even better thing, like PT Anderson and the 70s or Haim and Hoffman. You know I like licorice.
Simonie Wilson, whose love of movies began as a child in the ’70s going to drive-ins with her family, has been a resident of the Northland for more than a decade. She is a board member of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle and a Women Film Critics Circle member. She can be reached online at www.facebook.com/RedVineReviewer.
