Paul Thomas Anderson is recognized for his ambitious, sometimes austere or disturbing films. We think of The Master, There Will Be Blood or Phantom Thread. The register of Licorice Pizzaas its name suggests, is much lighter.
Posted at 2:30 p.m.
This is quite possibly his funniest film. A nostalgic apprenticeship story, which takes us back to the early 1970s, with a tenderness in his eyes that we have rarely seen in Anderson. Licorice Pizza (dream bigin French) is a film about love and friendship, a romantic comedy, like Punch Drunk Lovebut in a less quirky and more good-natured tone.
The Anderson film that springs to mind is Boogie Nights, which was shot in the same setting of the San Fernando Valley, a favorite location for American pornographic filming from the 1970s, when the two stories are set, and a suburb of Los Angeles where Paul Thomas Anderson himself grew up. Paul Thomas Anderson shot Boogie Nightsthe film that revealed him to a wider audience, at 27, two years later Hard Eight (which took place in Las Vegas), with John C. Reilly and Gwyneth Paltrow.
The parallel between Boogie Nights and Licorice Pizza also comes from the fact that they are two choral films which star a member of the Hoffman family, the late Philip Seymour in the first (as well as four other Anderson films) and his son Cooper, a newcomer, in the second. The physical resemblance is striking, especially for a role set in the 1970s.
Cooper Hoffman plays Gary Valentine, a charismatic 15-year-old child actor and entrepreneur with grand ideas and a lot of sass. He manages to convince many of the adults around him that his projects are worth investing in: a waterbed store, a pinballetc
PHOTO ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim in a scene from Licorice Pizza
Above all, he tries to seduce Alana, who is 10 years older than him, and who is looking for meaning in her life. This enigmatic character is interpreted by Alana Haim, singer of the indie pop trio Haim, which she founded with her two sisters. A group that Paul Thomas Anderson knows well since he shot some of their clips.
Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman are magnetic in these roles of young people who find their way and whose paths inevitably cross (this is a romantic comedy, after all). These two newcomers steal the show.
They are surrounded by several earthy characters. A casting agent who makes inappropriate comments about Alana’s “Jewish nose.” A white restaurateur who pretends to speak Japanese with his partner, borrowing a cartoonish Asian accent. Sean Penn makes a short appearance as an intense actor imbued with his legend. Bradley Cooper plays the boyfriend filmmaker Barbra Streisand, with tunes from Bee Gees’ Barry Gibbs, and filmmaker and actor Benny Safdie plays a local election candidate.
Funny and endearing, Licorice Pizza is friendly and charming, a perfect antidote to the rigors of winter. It is not, however, PT Anderson’s greatest film. But it must be said that in his case, the bar is particularly high.
Licorice Pizza is presented in theaters in the original English version, in the original English version with French subtitles and in a French dubbed version.
Drama
Licorice Pizza (VF: dream big)
Paul Thomas Anderson
With Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Bradley Cooper
2:13 a.m.