Licorice Pizza (2021) * *

Directed by:  Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring:  Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Bradley Cooper, Tom Waits, Sean Penn, Benny Safdie

As much as I wanted to rally behind Licorice Pizza, it is impossible to go beyond the fact that Alana (Haim) is 25 and Gary (Hoffman) is 15 (but will be 16 in another month).   They are the protagonists we know will eventually fall in love and declare their love for each other, but there are issues at play such as potential statutory rape and she is an adult and he is a minor, albeit a confident and eternally optimistic one.  

There is no denying Haim's and Hoffman's appeal as actors.  Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, exhibits much of his father's charm and offbeat sensibilities.   Haim, in her film debut, establishes a unique character at the service of a meh movie.   Anderson's love for the Southern California of the 1970's is palpable and obvious, but what we have in Licorice Pizza is an odyssey from one self-contained saga to another in an effort to keep Alana and Gary apart until the end.   It's an odd romantic comedy with little emphasis on the romance.   

Gary is a teen actor who meets and immediately falls for Alana on the day he is having his picture taken for the school yearbook.   Alana assists with the photographer, but as she states to Gary in an effort to rebuff his advances, she is 25 and he is 15.   Despite Gary's list of acting credits which he spouts off to Alana, he knows the likelihood of a long career is almost zilch, so he at first opens a store which sells waterbeds and later an arcade with an abundance of pinball machines which were recently made legal.

Where does Gary have the funding to start these businesses?   His parents are forever out of town or absent.  He can run around Southern California with little or no supervision.   And he's only 15.   This may not be the type of movie in which we're supposed to ask these questions or observe such behavior.  We are supposed to be swept up in the magic.   Licorice Pizza also contains some superb supporting work from Sean Penn as a hard-drinking actor in the twilight of his career, Bradley Cooper as hairdresser turned producer Jon Peters (who was dating Barbra Streisand at the time), and Benny Safdie as a closeted mayoral candidate.  Cooper is only in the movie about ten minutes, but electrifies as the narcissistic Peters who tries in vain to have Gary correctly pronounce his girlfriend's last name.  (Stry-SAND!)

We can't help but feel, however, that these subplots and tangents are designed to keep distance and mark time until Alana and Gary run towards each other (they run a lot in this movie) and walk off into the sunset as boyfriend and girlfriend.  Did I tell you she was 25 and he's 15?