Licorice Pizza: An Ode to Uncertainty

(Chase Manze)

An adolescent boy in a multicolored, striped button-down sprints across the eighth hole of a golf course towards a girl who has just fallen off the back of a motorcycle. Earlier: that same girl, now in a two-piece pink and purple paisley number follows police officers out of a convention center and runs, chasing their cop car (and the boy in it) to the local precinct. The boy is Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) and the girl, Alana Kane (Alana Haim). They meet in Gary's high school as he waits to take his yearbook photo. He is (presumably) a sophomore and Alana, 25, works for the company running the photoshoot. Within seconds of seeing her, Gary begins to lay on the charm, affecting a kind of hyper-confident tonality and mode of speech clearly ripped from Hollywood's leading men. He suggests that Alana join him that night at his go-to restaurant, Tail o' the Cock, and, despite all odds, she doesn't explicitly say no.

From that point on Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza follows them both as they continually run either at or away from one another. It would be too simple to label this film a love story, though it is. It is also fundamentally a film about yearning, isolation, and self-doubt that reckons with the various stages of youth, ranging from early adolescence to that tipping point in one's mid-20s where everything suddenly becomes real. Set against the backdrop of sun-drenched 1973 Los Angeles, PTA's ode to uncertainty glides through the entirety of its 133-minute runtime,  seamlessly transitioning from one vignette to the next. From the moment the MGM lion roars, you feel that you're in the hands of a master filmmaker producing yet another great work. Licorice Pizza fits neatly into a lineage of films alongside Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love, and Phantom Thread.

To try and describe the plot in its entirety would be a fool's errand. Much like Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Licorice Pizza contains a multitude of sub-plots and supporting characters that interweave to create an elaborate narrative web. As previously mentioned, the film is structured around vignettes. Those vignettes can be strange, to say the least. Quite a bit of time is dedicated to the sale and installation of waterbeds which, admittedly, seemed more and more appealing as the film went on. The story also includes a cross-country trip for a late-night show appearance, a mayoral campaign, and the re-legalization of pinball machines in LA. Unlike Boogie Nights and Magnolia, this film doesn't feel like a psychosis-inducing coke binge. Deeply measured and deliberate, each new thread serves to highlight a different aspect of Gary and Alana's personalities and relationship. All mania and spectacle involved serve a higher purpose, whether it be character development or simply giving different performers the opportunity to burn through the screen.

At the end of the day the success of this film hinges on its performances. There was much chatter leading up to its release about PTA's decision to case two virtual unknowns, Cooper Hoffman (son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Alana Haim (of the tri-sister band HAIM), as the leads. This decision obviously paid off. I'll get to that in a bit. Equally important, though, are the supporting performers, each of whom owns at least one moment of the film. Take Harriet Sansom Harris, for instance, who has a single scene as Gary's talent agent. Gary brings Alana in to meet her in the hopes that she might kickstart Alana's acting career. The conversation goes normally until Harris' face drops. Harris says that she can tell Alana is a fighter. She then pauses and says, "You remind me of a… DOG. A great…English…bulldog." That line reading will stay with me until the day I die. Again, a frivolous scene that just serves to entertain and further establish Alana's character. 

All mania and spectacle involved serve a higher purpose, whether it be character development or simply giving different performers the opportunity to burn through the screen.

Of the supporting performances (of which there are many), four stood out as going above and beyond the call of duty. Skyler Gisondo (previously rich boy Jared in Booksmart) is hilarious as a turtle-neck sporting kind of bizzaro Gary who flirts with Alana in Spanish and explains to her deeply Jewish father (at length) that he's an atheist. Bennie Safdie injects some deeply-felt pathos into the film as an LA City Councilman wrestling with personal demons. Sean Penn plays arguably the funniest part in the movie as an aging star who becomes infatuated with Alana. He then gets her drunk and tells her incredibly somber stories about the Korean War. Of course, Sean Penn can't be the funniest part when Bradley Cooper is also in this movie playing an absolutely unhinged Jon Peters. Within three minutes of appearing on-screen, Cooper goes through the "Barbara Streisand" pronunciation scene now famous from the trailer and threatens to kill Gary's friends and family if his waterbed isn't installed properly. "Do you have any siblings?" Cooper asks. Gary says he has a little brother. Cooper replies, "I'm gonna choke him out right in front of you."

As entertaining and hilarious as the supporting performers are, the majority of the film falls on the shoulders of Haim and Hoffman in their first-ever roles. Hoffman, in short, is excellent. The Gary character is a hustler, a striver. Deeply intelligent and articulate, he is capable of persuading and inspiring confidence in others. The film opens with him using his innate bravado to forge a career as an actor. When that fizzles out, he immediately transitions to a new venture. When that one fades, he's onto the next. On paper, Gary could come across as intensely unlikable. Fortunately for the film, Hoffman imbues him with a quiet fragility reminiscent of his father's work in films like Magnolia. At the core of all of Gary's aggressive, domineering, or bombastic tendencies is a subtle hint of pain. If his initial characterization is of a relentlessly confident schmoozer, Hoffman complicates that persona by allowing his artifice to fade at a moments notice.

At several significant junctures, Gary transitions instantaneously from the self-described "song-and-dance man" to a damaged young boy who feels fundamentally alone. You can see the light in his eyes dim. Such a stark contrast to the constant eye contact he makes throughout most of the film. His cheeks tense and his smile reduces to a line. Gary is a capable enough performer to hide outright sadness from those around him, but Hoffman lets the audience in. He puts you in direct contact with Gary's interiority. With every line read, whether it's with gusto as he negotiates the purchase of pinball machines or with subdued agony as he stares at Alana on a date with another man, Hoffman works to build on his consistent interpretation of Gary. He's an adolescent boy effectively without parents who is developing personal relationships, starting financial enterprises, and navigating self-discovery on his own. He is an island desperate to merge. 

At the core of all of Gary's aggressive, domineering, or bombastic tendencies is a subtle hint of pain.

In that way, Gary falls in line with many of PTA's other young characters. Anderson has a tendency to write young characters who never had the chance to be children. In Boogie Nights, Dirk Diggler leaves his home at 17 to make a living as a porn star. His relationship with his mother is deeply fraught, his father is a non-entity, and he's been working rather than going to high school for an indeterminate period of time. In the same film, Rollergirl first appears already deeply entrenched in the world of pornography. PTA includes scenes of her in classrooms, taking tests that she is not prepared for and ultimately fleeing back to the warm embrace of the known. There Will Be Blood sees H.W. Plainview grow up in a wasteland. His birth parents are dead and he has been adopted by a father who uses him as a sales prop. He blossoms in an oil spill. Upon becoming deaf after an accident, he is shipped away only to emerge years later, fully formed, no thanks to his father.

More so than any of those characters, though, Gary Valentine reminds me of Stanley Spector, Magnolia's kid genius. His father is a deadbeat, a failed actor relying on Stanley financially. Countless scenes imply or outright show Stanley's intense loneliness. He has no real friends, no interpersonal relationships, and all the responsibilities and pressures of adulthood. To me, there's no line more tragic than Stanley waking up his passed-out father and whispering, "You need to be nicer to me." Of course, Gary Valentine has friends and interpersonal relationships, but those feelings of isolation and responsibility are so clearly within him beneath all the layers of his constant social performance.

If Gary falls in with PTA's cabal of lost youths, then Alana is more similar to Punch-Drunk Love's Barry Egan or, bizarrely, Freddie Quell of The Master. That is not to say that Alana is deeply psychologically disturbed or prone to fits of violence. She's just lost. She feels uncomfortable at home, treating her family like a foreign entity. At the opening of the film she works a dead-end job that she hates where she is sexually harassed. Men constantly pursue her, none seeming to truly care. She throws herself into unusual or ill-fitting personal relationships because she has nothing else to turn to. There's no clear path forward. When Gary appears, he represents something pure and hopeful. During their first conversation Alana points out that Gary will be living in a million-dollar home by 16 and she'll be working at the yearbook photo company when she's 30. She immediately sees Gary as someone bound for great things while she toils in the dirt. It's only natural then that she clung onto him, perhaps believing that he was her best shot at finding steady ground. 

Haim is a revelation as Alana. She brings such a fierce energy, wit, and intelligence to the character and then buries it under a mile of insecurity and uncertainty. In nearly every social interaction she has, you can see the cogs moving in her head as she overthinks every aspect of her being. From her expression to her word choice to her body, everything is under constant review. When she stumbles in her speech or simply says the wrong thing, it never feels unearned or out of place. She gifts the character with such a rich internal life, most of which isn't explicit. Only in moments of drunkenness or absolute transparency do the machinations of her mind appear for all to see. Even then, it's only for a moment. At one point, Alana sits in a booth at Tail o' the Cock with Sean Penn's William Holden. He has expressed intense romantic interest in her and decides to ply her with martinis. As he walks her through some clandestine anecdote based in Korea, she stutters and smiles and says, "I don't understand […] but I'm sexy right?" The line itself is telling, but her delivery adds so much to it. She tries to play off her lack of understanding as cutesy by crinkling her nose and gently swaying her head side-to-side. Then, immediately after, knowing what her purpose is there and what Holden wants from her, she confirms: "I'm sexy right?" It's insecurity, intelligence, and desperation wrapped into three words. 

From her expression to her word choice to her body, everything is under constant review. When she stumbles in her speech or simply says the wrong thing, it never feels unearned or out of place.

It's worth noting that the character of Alana is not "cutesy" at all. She possesses a fierce desire for independence. She pushes back constantly on those around her that she sees as her peers. Haim soars in this regard as well, nailing the harsher beats and achieving top-tier comedic timing with some more forceful lines. What amazed me most, though, are her abilities as a listener and a looker: a silent performer. Throughout the film, but especially in scenes with Hoffman, Haim brought this incredible ability to convey information simply by listening. In a way it's a reflection of her character, attuned to her surroundings, but that doesn't make it any less difficult. Even in scenes where Hoffman was so clearly the central focus, I couldn't help but wander over to see her expressing either radiant joy or profound disappointment with just a look.

Alana and Gary are running together, hand in hand. This happens twice in the film. The first comes early on. It's broad daylight and they're exuberant together. For a moment it feels as though they're the only happy people on Earth and we, the audience, are fortunate to be watching them. Alana looks ahead, arms swinging frantically, bearing a toothy grin with her mouth agape. Gary looks to her, taking his eyes off the road. He doesn't overstate his feelings with some grand smile, nor does he shake his head in disbelief at how lucky he is. He just looks at her, softly, taking in every characteristic of her face, memorizing the details. During their first dinner at Tail o' the Cock, Gary says, "I won't forget you. The same way you won't forget me." It seems such a far-fetched idea in the moment. A seducer's line. It's nighttime now and Alan and Gary are running together, hand in hand. He's in a white suit with a red shirt, guiding her joyfully into some unknown next: something just out of frame. She looks to him, saying nothing, happy to feel safe in something. They turn a street corner and she opens her mouth to speak. Maybe this is certainty.