But Anderson is on more solid footing when he shows Gary and Alana getting caught up in the craziness of 1970s Hollywood. I cringed at a recurring comic bit in which the actor John Michael Higgins talks to his Japanese wife in an exaggerated accent.
The movie sends them zigzagging from one comic episode to the next. Alana admires Gary's entrepreneurial spirit, but she's also easily turned off by his immaturity and wonders why she's hanging out with him and his 15-year-old friends to begin with. Gary loves Alana and never stops trying to win her over.
Their relationship is a series of rocky ups and downs, separations and reunions. And Alana, who has nothing better to do, becomes his business partner.
But he's an unusually enterprising kid, and he soon opens a waterbed company in the valley. HAIM: (As Alana Kane) I'm sure - and all that math homework you have to do after everything.ĬHANG: Gary's 15 minutes in Hollywood are soon over. HOFFMAN: (As Gary Valentine) It's - gets complicated. HOFFMAN: (As Gary Valentine) Well, no, I'm not. HOFFMAN: (As Gary Valentine) Well, no, I'm not a secret agent. HAIM: (As Alana Kane) And you're a secret agent, too. HAIM: (As Alana Kane) And you're an actor. HAIM: (As Alana Kane) In your public relations company - because you have that. HOFFMAN: (As Gary Valentine) Yes, she does, in my public relations company. HAIM: (As Alana Kane) Oh, of course she does. HOFFMAN: (As Gary Valentine) My mom works for me. HAIM: (As Alana Kane) Come on - ever since you were a kid, song and dance man. I mean, ever since I was a kid, I've been a song and dance man.
HOFFMAN: (As Gary Valentine) I don't know how to do anything else. But something about Gary's insistent charm wears her down, and a friendship forms.ĪLANA HAIM: (As Alana Kane) So how did you become such a hotshot actor?ĬOOPER HOFFMAN: (As Gary Valentine) I'm a showman. Alana dismisses him at first, noting their age difference. Gary is instantly smitten with Alana and tries to impress her, bragging about his acting career - he has one movie under his belt - and the PR company he runs with his busy single mom. The movie is something of a romantic comedy, but a platonic one. They've appeared in several short films and music videos directed by Anderson.Īlana Haim is a revelation here, with a radiant "Star Is Born" aura that hooks you the moment she first appears. She's played by a lot Alana Haim, who's part of a rock trio - Haim - with her two sisters. At the beginning of the movie, Gary meets a twentysomething photographer's assistant named Alana. Cooper Hoffman plays a 15-year-old go-getter with the made-for-Hollywood name of Gary Valentine. One of them is Cooper Hoffman, the son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was one of Anderson's regular collaborators. It's also an obvious labor of love, starring two young actors with whom Anderson has some history. The movie is funny, shaggy, and altogether wonderful. We hear some of them on the gloriously overstuffed soundtrack - Nina Simone, Sonny and Cher, The Doors and others. The movie unfolds like a jumbled '70s flashback, one that he seems to have scrapped together by rummaging through cherished old stories and songs. It's the name of an old chain of record stores that were around when Anderson was growing up in the San Fernando Valley. JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: The words licorice pizza are never spoken in Paul Thomas Anderson's new movie, "Licorice Pizza." And so you may wonder where the title comes from, especially if you weren't in Southern California in the '70s. Our film critic Justin Chang has this review. It stars acting newcomers Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman and opens in theaters this week.
Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson hails from the San Fernando Valley, the setting for several of his films, including "Boogie Nights," "Magnolia" and "Punch-Drunk Love." He returns to the Valley for his new movie, "Licorice Pizza," an episodic coming-of-age comedy that takes place in the 1970s.