There's something peculiar about the way we remember the past, or rather, the way we choose to remember it. For those who actually lived through the 1970s in America, the decade often registers as a gloomy, depressing stretch—oil crises, political scandal, economic stagnation, and a general sense that the party of the 1960s had well and truly ended. Yet somehow, for today's audiences, the seventies have transformed into something rather different: a sun-dappled era of wide lapels, open-top cars, and apparently endless fun. This rose-tinted perspective finds perhaps its most potent expression in Paul Thomas Anderson's 2021 period drama Licorice Pizza, a film that bathes its setting in such warm, golden light that you'd be forgiven for thinking the decade had been nothing but a long California afternoon.
Anderson sets his story in the San Fernando Valley during the closing months of 1973, following two young people who stumble into an unlikely romance. Gary Valentine, played by Cooper Hoffman, is a fifteen-year-old child actor with the confidence of someone twice his age—undeterred by his youth, he pursues both a business career and Alana Kane, an aspiring actress ten years his senior. Their paths cross at Gary's school, where Alana has arrived as a photographer's assistant. Gary flirts with her immediately and shamelessly; though she rebuffs him at first, Alana eventually agrees to chaperone him during an acting gig in New York. Her personal life grows complicated when she dates Lance Brannigan (Skyler Gisondo), an actor slightly closer to her own age, but that relationship collapses after Lance declares himself an atheist during a dinner with Alana's Jewish family—a moment played for awkward comedy that reveals the cultural fault lines of the era.
What follows is a series of loosely connected misadventures. Alana throws herself into helping Gary with his waterbed business, which leads her to ride pillion on a motorcycle with ageing Hollywood star Jack Holden (Sean Penn), assist with a waterbed delivery to the terrifying home of producer Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper), and later volunteer for the mayoral campaign of LA councilman Joel Wachs (Benny Safdie). Throughout these episodes, Alana remains unaware of Wachs's closely guarded personal secret—a detail that adds a poignant undercurrent to her earnest political idealism.
Licorice Pizza isn't a particularly deep or insightful film in the traditional sense. But it is, without question, the most personal work Anderson has ever committed to celluloid. The character of Gary Valentine was based directly on the director's childhood friend Gary Goetzman, now a film producer, who—just like his fictional counterpart—started a waterbed company and dealt in pinball machines during his teenage years. This biographical connection gives the film an authenticity that transcends its period trappings; Anderson isn't merely reconstructing an era, he's reconstructing specific memories of people he actually knew.
The character of Alana Kane, meanwhile, was written specifically for Alana Haim, the musician best known as part of the pop-rock band Haim. Anderson had previously directed several music videos for the group and clearly saw something in her that he wanted to capture on film. This marked Haim's acting debut, and Anderson went so far as to cast her actual sisters—Este and Danielle—and her real parents as her on-screen family, blurring the line between fiction and reality in ways that lend the film an almost documentary-like intimacy.
The supporting cast is something of a mixed bag. Jon Peters, the real-life producer famous for his flamboyant personality and his relationship with Barbra Streisand at the height of her fame—he was also the inspiration for Warren Beatty's character in the New Hollywood classic Shampoo—agreed to let Anderson depict him on screen. Bradley Cooper seizes this opportunity with obvious relish, playing Peters as a comically arrogant, sinister, and genuinely dangerous figure who seems perpetually on the verge of violence. It's one of the film's most memorable performances.
Sean Penn fares less well as Jack Holden, an actor obviously modelled on William Holden who even references the star's 1950s hit The Bridges at Toko-Ri. The performance feels somewhat mannered, never quite achieving the lived-in quality of Cooper's work. Tom Waits, appearing as film director Rex Blau, makes similarly little impression—a shame given the musician's usually magnetic screen presence.
The real discoveries here are the two leads. Alana Haim, despite lacking conventional Hollywood glamour, radiates a specific kind of charm and innocence that makes the audience genuinely root for her to end up with Gary, despite the age gap that would make many viewers uncomfortable in different circumstances. There's something refreshingly unpolished about her performance—she hasn't yet learned the tricks that trained actors deploy, and that rawness serves the character perfectly.
Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman—who collaborated with Anderson on some of his most significant films including Boogie Nights and The Master—carries his father's legacy with remarkable ease. He was deservedly nominated for a Golden Globe for this work, and one hopes this performance opens doors for him rather than casting a long shadow he's expected to live under.
Where Licorice Pizza truly excels is in its recreation of Los Angeles half a century ago. Anderson and his production team have clearly lavished attention on every detail, from the fashion and the music that drifts through the background to the more specific historical texture. The film references the 1973 oil shock and petrol shortages—details that give the film a strangely contemporary resonance, given our own energy anxieties. These aren't merely decorative touches; they ground the nostalgia in something recognisably real.
The film bears obvious comparison to Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which takes place just a few years earlier in a similar milieu and employs a similar strategy of weaving real personalities into fictional narratives. Both films share a deep affection for Los Angeles and its peculiar mythology. Yet Tarantino's work feels more focused, more purposeful in its narrative construction. Anderson's film, by contrast, suffers from an episodic structure that contributes to an excessive running time and a reliance on Hollywood lore that may leave average viewers scratching their heads. Some of the humour, particularly when dealing with ethnic or racial stereotypes, doesn't land as well as Anderson presumably intended.
Still, Anderson maintains strong directorial discipline throughout. The film looks gorgeous—shot on 35mm film, it has a texture that digital simply cannot replicate. More importantly, Anderson maintains a fundamentally positive view of his characters, extending them sympathy and understanding that's increasingly difficult to find among contemporary Hollywood filmmakers, who often default to cynicism and irony.
Licorice Pizza is slow, perhaps overlong, and occasionally frustrating in its refusal to conform to conventional narrative expectations. Yet it remains a solid piece of work that should satisfy anyone with a fondness for period drama or a particular nostalgia for 1970s California. Anderson has made films that are more ambitious, more technically accomplished, and more emotionally devastating. But he's rarely made one that feels this personal, this affectionate, this unwilling to judge its characters for their poor decisions and questionable judgement. In today’s world of cinema dominated by franchise properties and algorithm-friendly storytelling, there's something quietly radical about a film that simply wants to spend time with interesting people in a specific place that no longer exists.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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