Licorice Pizza

Licorice Pizza

Plot

In 1973, 15-year-old Gary is an entrepreneur at heart. He meets Alana, the photographer at his school photo day, and asks her out – despite her being 25, she accepts. They then start a friendship that has ups and downs.

Direction

Being a period film, the vintage look and feel of 1973 is practically flawless. It is also loosely based on true events with most of the characters being ‘homages’ to real people.

Cast/Characters

Both leads are newcomers to the acting industry. Alana Haim is a singer who plays in the band Haim, and Gary is played by Cooper Hoffman. This is the son of Anderson’s frequent collaborator the late great Philip Seymour. While Alana is a completely fictionalised character, Gary is based on Anderson’s friend Gary Goetzman a child actor.

They are both very good in their roles, despite what I’m about to write on one of them.

There is a very congested secondary cast who appear in one or two scenes each. Some big names who appear are Bradley Cooper (who plays the real-life Jon Peters), and Sean Penn as Jack Holden (a fictionalised version of William Holden).

Screenplay/Setting/Themes

I found this a little hard to watch – and found the character of Alana quite unlikeable and her up and down, up and down, up and down relationship and attitude towards Gary was almost toxic, she also has similar interactions with another young man Lance.

At 130m it felt at least 30-40 too long with several odd moments that seemed just thrown in as a ‘why not’ and some editing really should have occurred and with so many moments like; Gary getting arrested, Jack Holden and the motorbike, Jon Peters and the waterbed, Alana working for Joel Wachs, there was plenty to choose from.

Score/Soundtrack

I found it odd, and did not match the tone of the film or what was going on. In one scene there is some odd windpipes being used that was almost headache inducing.

Overall

Despite the critical acclaim and many Oscar noms, I struggled with this one. Despite flawless performances from the leads (I may not have liked the character, but that means the actor did a great job) – I was not a fan of this.

2/5