It’s a golden detour for Anderson, who rarely strays outside California but whose attraction to a subject, mood and tone is endlessly unpredictable. As portraits of older men to Alana, they make Gary seem only more of a sweet, genuine exception.Īs an amiable, sometimes satirical odyssey populated with outsized characters, “Licorice Pizza” reminded me of an Elaine May film. Benny Safdie joins later as a local politician Alana volunteers for. A wonderfully over-the-top Bradley Cooper feverishly plays Jon Peters, boyfriend to Barbra Streisand. Sean Penn pops up as a stand-in for William Holden. That Hollywood is just over the hill is a constant source of intrigue and farce.
#STEVE PENK WIND UPS SHAGGY FULL#
“Licorice Pizza,” full of comic set pieces and digressions, is based on the anecdotes of Gary Goetzman, a producer and actor best known as Tom Hanks’ producing partner. The whole film, shot in 35mm, feels like an assortment of memories and old, probably embellished tales. In such a richly ’70s specific film, their romance, like any love, exists out of time. Alana refuses to accept Gary as a boyfriend but they have a hard-to-articulate bond - friends, business partners, maybe soul mates - that keeps them circling back to one another despite the awkward gap in age. The spell of that opening shot, for example, is broken with a butt slap from an older man.Īgainst hallmark events of the era, like the gas crisis and the dawn of the water bed, Anderson follows the crisscrossing relationship between Gary and Alana. It’s nostalgic, for sure, but laced with reminders of that era’s shortcomings, too. With lush detail, oodles of verve and a soundtrack featuring David Bowie and Blood, Sweat & Tears, “Licorice Pizza” conjures a gentler, more shambolic time. But that decade is now almost half a century removed from today - the same distance from the ‘70s to the flappers and speakeasies of the ’20s. It was fairly recent, I think, that the ’70s didn’t seem so very long ago. But the vinyl store’s absence only enhances the feeling that the light air of Anderson’s film belongs to a disappeared time. “Licorice Pizza” takes its name from a regional record store from the time which never actually appears in the film. Anderson’s ninth film, his shaggiest, most affectionate and maybe the one I most wanted to watch again immediately after it was over, is a charmingly loose love letter to the Valley of his youth, an ode to a bygone, pre-digital era, and a complete hoot. “You’re like a little Robert Goulet or Dean Martin,” she says.Īnderson’s camera circles them as they walk, and though few moments quite match the magic of that opening, “Licorice Pizza” never stops pinballing to a sunny, infectious groove.