Licorice Pizza – 2021
OK, I don’t get it. Whatever it is about this movie that earned it a Best Picture nomination, I don’t understand. First, and foremost, I found the movie pretty close to dull and uninteresting. I wasn’t invested in any of the characters, and when I mention the characters, I mean there were really only two, but I’ll get to that in a moment. This is a coming-of-age movie, a genre that has rarely held much interest for me in the first place. But to get me invested in the story, the movie lacked the benefit of having relatable or even likable characters. The actors were fine, but the parts they played were just… jerks.
The film followed the young romance between the fifteen year-old Gary, and the twenty-five year-old Alana, played by Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim. It is important to note that this was the debut film for both actors, and they played their parts quite admirably. I don’t know if I was supposed to like the characters they played, but I just didn’t. Alana was mean and manipulative. Gary was like a sleazy sexual predator who objectified women. And by the end of the movie, I just didn’t really care if they ended up together or not, though you knew they would.
And as I mentioned, these were really the only characters in the film. Every other actor in the movie was either a walk on role with a minimum of screen time, or a character who was often on the screen, but rarely addressed or acknowledged. And that’s a strange thing because some very recognizable names were in the movie, like Bradley Cooper, Sean Penn, Maya Rudolph, Tom Waits, and Mary Elizabeth Ellis. You’d think that with names like that, they would have used them a little more. As it was, they each got a very minimal amount of screen time. They were like glorified cameos, appearing in a single sequence, and then never seen again. The only story arc that lasted more than a single scene was that of the two leads, Gary and Alana.
Another thing I didn’t particularly care for was the plot. The movie depended a little too much on the will they or won’t they trope. They’re friends, they’re fighting. They’re friends again, they’re fighting again. And we all know they were going to end up together because right near the beginning of the movie, Gary tells his younger brother, “I just met the girl I’m going to marry.” So I never really doubted that his prediction would come true.
I think that one of the things that the movie, as a whole, banked too much on was the whole nostalgia angle. The story took place in 1973, and the clothes, the hairstyles, the cars, and the general aesthetics were all very period specific. But unless you were already culturally aware that year, none of the nostalgia had much meaning. The movie was written, directed, and produced by Paul Anderson. In my reading, I learned that most of the film directly reflected his own childhood and experiences, or those of a friend of his. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that, but I just didn’t find his childhood experiences that interesting to watch on-screen.
As for the performances of Haim and Hoffman, I’d have to say that they were both good, but there were moments when Hoffman was great. He played a teenager who seemed to have the maturity, ambition, and charm of a man in his twenties, and Hoffman pulled it off well. When his face first appeared on the screen, I immediately recognized his resemblance to his famous father Philip Seymour Hoffman, and it was clear he inherited some of his dad’s skills as an actor. Haim was competent, but nothing to really write home about.
And I also have to make note of Bradley Cooper, playing the part of Jon Peters, who was, in 1973, dating Barbara Streisand. His scene was funny because cooper played the movie mogul as a womanizer who was high on something. He was actually pretty funny. But again, he was in a short sequence of the film and then never seen again. We never saw anyone playing Streisand, but we did see Christine Ebersole playing Lucille Ball, though in the credits, she is listed as Lucy Doolittle, though why they had to change her last name is beyond me, especially since they were very specific about other historical figures.
And finally, I have to comment on the film’s title. Licorice Pizza. Why was the film titled Licorice Pizza? It was never mentioned, nor was it ever made reference to in the movie. Well, it is because the director, Paul Thomas Anderson, was quoted as saying “If there’s two words that make me kind of have a Pavlovian response and memory of being a child and running around, it’s ‘licorice’ and ‘pizza.’ It instantly takes me back to that time.” The problem is that if you weren’t aware that there was a chain of record stores in Los Angeles called Licorice Pizza Record Store, then the title would mean nothing to you. It wouldn’t bring back memories or inspire nostalgia. It would just be confusing, like it was to me.
But I’m not saying this was a bad movie. It just didn’t really stand out to me as Best Picture material. It had some good acting, I suppose, and it had a good 70s and earlier rock music soundtrack, and a couple of interesting cameos. But for me, that was about it, and I wanted something more. And when you put it next to some of the other nominees for 2021, it just didn’t compare.