Which is not to say there isn\u2019t a plot happening here; things happen to Gary and Alana, left and right, plenty of them. But the plot isn\u2019t what moves the movie along. It\u2019s a feeling, a vibe, the way Anderson\u2019s script and direction of his marvelous young actors gets at something indelible about romantic longing, undying crushes, and the jealousy of youth. No matter how hard they try, Alana and Gary absolutely cannot shake each other off, and they also absolutely cannot stop fucking with each other, pushing buttons and feigning disinterest and showboating other romantic possibilities in a doomed attempt to prove they don\u2019t need the other. This is, of course, patently false. These two fully belong together, and Anderson carefully, precisely builds a narrative where you can\u2019t imagine it going any other way. There is an inevitability<\/em> to this pairing, and much of the movie is about waiting for them to acknowledge it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is the first major film role for Alana Haim, and she\u2019s electrifying; it is certainly not a coincidence that she share the character\u2019s first name, nor that she is surrounded by a family exactly like her own (and played by them as well, including their mother and father). It would be easy to dismiss her casting as a friendly favor \u2013 Anderson has directed a number of HAIM\u2019s videos \u2013 but it\u2019s more than that. Watch very carefully the way she laughs and smiles as she walks away from after their first conversation, once her guard is down, or a later scene of her at dinner with her boss (Benny Safdie), as she listens with all of her intensity and pieces everything that he\u2019s not telling her together. That\u2019s not a lark, or a musician moonlighting. That\u2019s a film acting career, blossoming before your eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cooper Hoffman also comes from the PTA circle \u2013 his father was the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who appeared in several of Anderson\u2019s films. He has a warm, easy presence, and he actually looks<\/em> like a real teenager, with mussy hair and bad skin and loose limbs, which is weirdly revelatory. Not that any of that teenage awkwardness stuff is a factor; Gary is a hustler, who veers from child acting to waterbed sales to arcade management over the course of the narrative (don\u2019t ask, it makes sense), and Hoffman conveys the confidence this guy could not get by without.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Comparisons have already been made between Licorice Pizza<\/em> and Quentin Tarantino\u2019s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood<\/em>, and Anderson is certainly playing in the same stylistic sandbox as OUATIH<\/em> \u2013 that L.A. vibrancy, industry town feeling, radios blasting, sunlight baking. And its \u201870s Valley setting and coming-of-age arc frequently recalls his own breakthrough film Boogie Nights<\/em>. But he\u2019s a different filmmaker now, and he\u2019s not playing the hits here; Anderson\u2019s delightful strangeness, the sprung comic sensibility of later works like Inherent Vice,<\/em> keeps him from veering too far into nostalgia. Those impulses don\u2019t always pay off (there\u2019s a weird bit with John Michael Huggins as a racist sushi restaurant owner that doesn\u2019t work at all), but when they do \u2013 like the long, strange, cockeyed sequence involving an unhinged Bradley Cooper, a botched waterbed installation, and a hair-raising truck ride on an empty tank of gas \u2013 they really<\/em> do. Some laughs are prompted by odd situations and ripe characters, others out of sheer respect that he\u2019s not only doing what he\u2019s doing, but sustaining it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And what he\u2019s doing in the closing sequence \u2013 which don\u2019t worry, I wouldn\u2019t dream of revealing \u2013 is awe-inspiring, underscoring through careful manipulation of plot mechanics and imagery from throughout the picture, how much these two care<\/em> for each other. They may play games and may play cool, but in that breathless passage, Licorice Pizza <\/em>has an openness and vulnerability that\u2019s closer to his early work, specifically to Magnolia, <\/em>and its willingness to swing for the emotional fences in a way his later films might not. In other words, Licorice Pizza <\/em>finds Paul Thomas Anderson combining the heart of his early films with the form of his latter work. It is, in its way, the best of both worlds. “Licorice Pizza” is out Wednesday in limited release and Christmas Day in theaters everywhere.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/licorice-pizza2-1024x576.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nA<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n