There’s a strange sort of reverence for any Paul Thomas Anderson film, but the discussion surrounding his newest, Licorice Pizza, is one of the more troubling. It has become almost disallowed to criticize or question the artistic choices of a so-called master, as if someone expressing concerns over a film’s more disturbing plot elements somehow invalidates their opinion.
Licorice Pizza stars Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman in their first onscreen roles. Haim is a member of the band Haim and Hoffman is the son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, so while both are newcomers to film, neither is new to show business. And in their first roles, both give the kind of star-making performances that will change the trajectories of their careers, if they so choose.
There are seedy, unsettling themes at play though, leaving this a film that needs to be the topic of more serious discussion. Many laud it’s breezy, unfettered casualness, a sort of kids-running-wild, coming-of-age story that reminds them of their own younger selves — or at least the younger selves they create fantasies about. But even a surface level assessment of the plot, a 25-year-old woman’s burgeoning romance with a 15-year-old boy, should be met with at least a few more question marks than the almost universal praise it has received.
Alana Haim plays Alana Kane, a photography assistant in 1970s San Fernando Valley. She lives with her parents and her two perfect sisters in the sort of family dynamic where there’s no real push for women to leave their parental home until marriage. While shooting yearbook photos at the high school, Alana meets Gary Valentine (Hoffman), a child actor whose recent growth spurt has derailed his casting prospects. Gary is immediately flirtatious, overcome with the sort of bravado one would expect from a kid who has employees and fans. He begs Alana to meet him for dinner and she declines repeatedly, which doesn’t dissuade him from continuing to plead. When she shows up later, we are not given any insight into what changed her mind, thereby missing out on much-needed context that could have helped make the subsequent events less concerning.
Almost immediately, Alana and Gary are spending a lot of time together. Gary’s dried up audition schedule leaves him with plenty of time to develop his entrepreneurial side, launching one business after another, Alana joining him as a business partner. She dates someone else for a bit, but Gary is always a presence in her life, even when he isn’t around and soon the two are spending all of their time together. No one ever questions this relationship, and in fact many of the people they encounter assume without judgment that they are dating. At one point, Alana herself asks if it’s weird, only to be told no.
And this is the oddity of Licorice Pizza. From a filmmaking standpoint, it has good performances, perfect production and costume choices, and cinematography that mostly works to create something in between a dream and a home movie. There are some funny sequences, including John C. Reilly’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo as Fred Gwynne, and Bradley Cooper reveling in his extended cameo as Hollywood producer Jon Peters. His appearance leads into a hilariously intense sequence involving the 70s gas shortage, a moving van, and a winding hill and is a fun throwback to carefree classics like American Graffiti.
But for every shining moment, there are others that range from head-scratching to unnecessarily wrong. One involves racism that comes out of nowhere and is stunning in its tone-deaf misfire. John Michael Higgins plays Jerry Frick, a restauranteur in the process of opening a Japanese restaurant in LA, with the help of financing from Gary. As his Japanese wife smiles, Jerry appropriates a horrendous accent and pretends to speak in her native language. The scene may have been intended to mock the casual racism of the time, but the gag is revisited later and the overall impact treats the subject with a quaint nostalgia meant for laughs that are out of place at any time, let alone at the end of a year of soaring violence against Asian communities.
Which brings us back to the film’s main idea and biggest issue: the relationship between Alana and Gary. The age difference is a significant one, and if the genders were swapped no one would question that this was a problematic plot line. But because boys and girls are treated much differently when it comes to sex and relationships, situating the woman as older and the boy as younger, there’s a tacit acceptance from the audience that is all the more ready to accept the dynamic because Gary is the instigator. Even with a woman 10 years his senior, the boy who isn’t old enough to drive is truly the one with the power, while Alana constantly finds herself giving in to him. Some excuse this because the two don’t have sex in the movie. What some seem to overlook is that even without consummation, this is still a very sexual relationship as the lack of sex — and the willful refusal to even mention it — exacerbates the tension between them.
Although Alana is given her own point of view away from Gary, the difference between them is further alleviated by the fact that she is not a fully realized adult. Living with her family and not knowing what she wants out of life are fine. Many of us felt that way in our mid-twenties. But her choices and decisions throughout are immature and often illogical. That she is surrounded by adults who encourage and applaud her weird situation with Gary is even worse and makes it clear that Alana isn’t written as a real person, despite how much of her own storyline she seems to have. Alana is the dream girl, the babysitter that served as many boys’ first crush, the fantasy that shouldn’t be attainable but maybe could be in the right circumstances. This culminates in a final shot that puts an exclamation point rather than a question mark on Anderson’s intentions.
Licorice Pizza bears some of the qualities that should make it a fun and lighthearted nostalgia-fueled experience. Unfortunately, it is weighed down both by it’s strange treatment of the main subject matter, and by those who refuse to interrogate it.
Licorice Pizza is distributed by United Artists Releasing and MGM, and is in theaters now.
