Licorice Pizza (2021)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
The story of Gary Valentine and Alana Kane growing up, running around and going through the treacherous navigation of first love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973.
89 connections found
View:
89 films that influenced Licorice Pizza
What critics say influenced Licorice Pizza
Delivering a waterbed to a fancy address, they encounter Jon Peters (a hilariously committed Bradley Cooper), the real-life celebrity hairstylist and legendary womanizer who is said to have been the inspiration for Warren Beatty’s character in Shampoo .
* – Probably not coincidentally, George Roundy, the playboy hairdresser played by Warren Beatty in Shampoo, was partially modeled after Jon Peters.
Gary and Alana eventually start a waterbed business and deliver one to a volatile, lascivious Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper), the movie producer, boyfriend of Barbra Streisand, and suspected inspiration for Warren Beatty’s character in Shampoo .
The film’s ultimate example of this is the brilliant set piece involving Gary and Alana delivering a waterbed to Hollywood producer Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper, playing the real-life womanizer who inspired Warren Beatty’s character in Shampoo), who also happened to be Barbra Streisand’s boyfriend at the time.
Some of those stories are told here, few of them more arresting than the one starring a hilarious, unnerving Bradley Cooper as Jon Peters, the prolific producer and serial womanizer (and frequent sexual-harassment defendant) whose early career as a hairdresser was one of the inspirations for Ashby’s great 1975 comedy, “Shampoo.”
But the more obvious influences are works from auteurs Hal Ashby (“Shampoo”) and Robert Altman (“Short Cuts,” “The Player”), as Anderson once again demonstrates his genius for pitch-perfect ensemble casting and an uncanny ability to weave multiple ongoing storylines into a cohesive, exhilarating, astonishingly authentic big-picture story.
Not only casting unknowns, but virtually untested, actors Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman (son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) in the leads and setting it all in 1973 (the same year American Graffiti opened, a stated inspiration for Anderson), the director has rolled the dice on a story that is loosely based on the youthful experiences of producer Gary Goetzman.
What’s here is a wistful coming-of-age saga akin to George Lucas’ “American Graffiti” (made the same year “Pizza” takes place) without the anxiety and anger and soaring on the chemistry and charisma of Haim and Hoffman, the haute idiosyncrasies of the (eve of Watergate) era and a soundtrack that just can’t be beat.
Although it channels Fast Times At Ridgemont High and American Graffiti , Licorice Pizza delivers a fresh blast of romance and humour, and feels idiosyncratic enough to stand gloriously apart.
It’s a bit shaggy and baggy at first, but once you get on its wavelength—seeing it as a kind of doobie-esque Hal Ashby/Altman-like hang out movie with “American Graffiti” night-on-the-town coming of age vibes—and once it all coalesces—warm, affectionate, nostalgic— it’s a real terrific throwback thrill of captivating, unique characters in a simple, unpretentious story about running around and growing up in 1970s Los Angeles with little tentative romance sprinkled in for good measure.
Some of it was inspired by classics like “American Graffiti,” with its burger-joints-and-cherry-bombs vision of California youth, or plucked from real-life events, like the ’70s gas shortages that caused car lines to stretch on for blocks.
I’ve no idea how much of it is true memoir and how much fiction, but Anderson has absolutely nailed the essence of its setting in much the same way George Lucas did with “American Graffiti”.
For the most part, Anderson channels Richard Linklater's vibe and tone in Slackers and Dazed and Confused.
There’s also the incredible soundtrack, the beauty of seeing it in 70 mm, and Anderson’s script reminiscent of teenage classics like Dazed and Confused , Empire Records , and The Last American Virgin .
While there are certainly echoes of other teen films, Dazed and Confused and The Last American Virgin come to mind, Licorice Pizza is its own thing because only Paul Thomas Anderson can tell this story in this way.
It reminded me of Dazed and Confused but without Linklater’s snappy dialogue.
It’s nothing against the instinct, I get it, I love Dazed and Confused too.
Much like another fine ‘70s nostalgia piece, Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused , the pleasing texture of Licorice Pizza masks the emotional turbulence under the surface.
But the film that Licorice most reminded me of was director Hal Ashby’s masterpiece Harold and Maude .
It’s a star-crossed love story à la Harold and Maude minus the tragedy.
A 15-year-old charmer with the air of a midlife mover and shaker (think of a kinder Max Fischer from Rushmore or a sunnier version of Max’s forebear: Harold and Maude’s Harold), Gary meets the twentysomething Alana (she’s fuzzy about her age) at his San Fernando Valley high school, where she’s working as an assistant to the photographer taking class pictures.
From the strangely infantalising hubbub of Alana’s family (played by Haim’s real-life relatives) to Gary’s peculiar half-man/half-boy existence, Licorice Pizza makes us accept a relationship that has something of the dysfunctional charm of Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude .
Advertisement
I evoked the name of Cameron Crowe earlier because, watching Licorice Pizza, I got many of the same vibes I had during Crowe’s two best movies, Say Anything and Almost Famous.
Characters are more sketched-in than wholly-formed as Anderson emphasizes referencing films as diverse as “Almost Famous” and “Taxi Driver,” “The Great Gatsby” and “Love Story” as well as his own “Punch Drunk Love” and “Boogie Nights.”
Somewhat reminiscent of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (and “Almost Famous,” marginally), this intimate, amusing film moves through seemingly random events in the lives of these two personas as they navigate adolescence, burgeoning careers, friendships, family, and young love.
And unlike the re-examining of Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographic “Almost Famous,” Anderson manages to keep the budding physical aspects of the romantic involvement limited to innocent revelations and devoid of prurient material.
Many a film has been made about this era, Almost Famous (2000), e.g., and yet what could've been a nostalgic rom-com with heart becomes a mish-mash comedy that oddly injects serious social commentary two-thirds into the story as a catalyst for Alana to attempt to be an adult.
It’s as if the spirit of Cameron Crowe has slipped into Anderson’s soul to produce a sort of companion piece to the former’s “Almost Famous,” in which a peach-fuzzed teenager and a slightly older, more experienced woman create movie magic.
The influence of Robert Altman remains strong with Anderson (who served as a “backup director” on the then-octogenarian master’s “Prairie Home Companion”), to the extent that this feels like his most direct attempt at channeling the “Nashville” helmer’s semi-improvisatory approach — a bold tack for someone working with two inexperienced actors in their first lead roles.
The last act of the movie is set in and around the mayoral campaign of a young, skilled, ostensibly progressive Valley politician (played by Uncut Gems codirector Benny Safdie) and evokes period political dramas like The Candidate , with a little bit of Taxi Driver and Nashville sprinkled in.
Hoffman, the son of one of Anderson’s favoured collaborators, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, bursts onto the scene with an endearingly slippery presence that channels his father, a young Edward Norton and the wise-beyond-his-years smart-alecky-ness of Rushmore’s Max Fischer.
In a way that’s reminiscent of Max Fischer in “Rushmore,” all the adults Gary encounters take him seriously and treat him as an equal.
Gary actually recalls Max Fischer in Wes Anderson's Rushmore : a suave, smooth-talking adult trapped in an inelegant child's body, able to talk anyone into anything.
A 15-year-old charmer with the air of a midlife mover and shaker (think of a kinder Max Fischer from Rushmore or a sunnier version of Max’s forebear: Harold and Maude’s Harold), Gary meets the twentysomething Alana (she’s fuzzy about her age) at his San Fernando Valley high school, where she’s working as an assistant to the photographer taking class pictures.
On the contrary, Gary is essentially a cartoon character, a cross between Rushmore’s Max Fischer and Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy whose successes and exploits strain all rational credulity (it is perhaps this element of fantasy which allows the film’s much-discussed age gap to play as whimsical rather than creepy).
Focused and personable, he offers big Max Fischer energy (think "Rushmore," but set during Nixon's presidency), constantly hustling and looking for the next gig, as an actor, or a business maven.
The last act of the movie is set in and around the mayoral campaign of a young, skilled, ostensibly progressive Valley politician (played by Uncut Gems codirector Benny Safdie) and evokes period political dramas like The Candidate , with a little bit of Taxi Driver and Nashville sprinkled in.
Characters are more sketched-in than wholly-formed as Anderson emphasizes referencing films as diverse as “Almost Famous” and “Taxi Driver,” “The Great Gatsby” and “Love Story” as well as his own “Punch Drunk Love” and “Boogie Nights.”
The scene is almost shot for shot, line for line, lifted from Taxi Driver .
It’s a world that lifts Richard Nixon, the 1970s oil embargo, and Barbra Streisand from ours, but also riffs liberally from Taxi Driver and other movies without ever coming off as pastiche.
Later, Alana is briefly swept into the drunken whirl of a veteran movie star (Sean Penn as a figure based on William Holden), then volunteers for a rising politician’s (Benny Safdie) campaign a la Cybill Shepherd in Taxi Driver .
Advertisement
The sprawling, pinwheeling world that surrounds Alana and Gary as they barrel around the Valley making sometimes regrettable choices recalls, in particular, the prismatic early-’70s L.A. of Altman’s The Long Goodbye , a place full of larger-than-life characters and enigmatic encounters.
Soon, you’re just placed under a hazy, romantic spell of all the sincere, heartfelt, and very loose vibing (sometimes it feels like it features the rich, idling, and consorting languidness of Robert Altman’s “The Long Goodbye” minus the detective story).
There’s also the incredible soundtrack, the beauty of seeing it in 70 mm, and Anderson’s script reminiscent of teenage classics like Dazed and Confused , Empire Records , and The Last American Virgin .
While there are certainly echoes of other teen films, Dazed and Confused and The Last American Virgin come to mind, Licorice Pizza is its own thing because only Paul Thomas Anderson can tell this story in this way.