Licorice Pizza - Review

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of my favourite filmmakers of all time. I think the key to my affection is the fact that all of his stories are about how fucked up a person is or can be. I love stories about fucked up people with egos that are too big. His stories are also incredibly well-crafted character studies. The way we're brought into the mind of these characters is just so compelling to me.

Boogie Nights is my favourite PTA movie and it's not particularly close. The time period, the characters, the structure, I love Boogie Nights to my core. So when I heard about Licorice Pizza, a coming-of-age movie set at around the same time I was in.

It took me a little while to see Licorice Pizza because Canada's a bit of a mess but I saw it and liked a couple of things then the rest fell kinda flat. I saw this in theatres and there were about ten people in there, all-white (Like me) and over forty (Unlike me).

I'll say off the top, they loved the Japanese voice thing. I did not. In general, I'm not a fan of racial humour even if you're making fun of the racist. It's just unnecessary and in this specific movie, it feels like it's only there to provoke the audience.

As for the relationship between the two, I'm not sure. Yes, relationships between a minor and an adult are immoral and illegal but it never feels immoral or illegal for two reasons. Cooper doesn't look like a child to me so you aren't constantly reminded of his age when you're watching it as you would when watching Lolita. It also doesn't feel voyeuristic. Cooper isn't sexualized throughout the movie by PTA or Alana.

That being said, every time I thought about the fact that he was supposed to be 15 and she's supposed to be either 25 or 28, I thought it was unnecessary and it took me out of the movie. I don't know what the larger commentary is or if there even is one with this age gap. I'm sure there's some real-life precedence for it but like the racist stuff, it feels like an attempt to provoke.

My biggest bright spot from the movie is (most of) the side characters. Bradley Cooper, Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Harriet Sansom Harris, and Benny Safdie are great in the movie and their characters are interesting. You could pluck any of these characters out and make a full, compelling movie, though in this movie they have underwhelming arcs.

Overall I think the structure left something to be desired. It doesn't feel as coherent or as painstakingly obsessed over as PTA's finest films.