I have never really approved of the seventies. I wasn’t there myself, but it seems like a greasy, pervy era with disgusting food and a perpetual fog of cigarette smoke.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s coming-of-age drama, Licorice Pizza, didn’t do much to dispel these suspicions. From the porny ads in the newspapers to watching hairdresser turned producer Jon Peters (played by Bradley Cooper) virtually agonised by how much “he loves tail”, there’s a sleaziness in the world of Licorice Pizza that isn’t so much sexy as slimy.
Set in the San Fernando Valley in 1973, the film follows the unlikely friendship of 15-year-old Gary Valentine and 25-year-old Alana Kane (played by singer Alana Haim), as they try to figure out who they want to be and who they want to be with.
Together, the pair flog waterbeds, vandalise a Ferrari and, eventually, fall in love. At first, Gary, whose career as a child-star is on the wane, initially seems a bit too slick and artificial to be likeable — it’s no coincidence that the unhinged but charismatic Jon Peters realises that he’s dealing with a fellow showman when speaking to Gary (“I didn’t see it before, but you speak the same language as me”).
With his loyal band of teen boy followers, he swings from one venture to the next (acting, PR, waterbeds, campaigning, pinball machines) with mixed success but unwavering enthusiasm and resourcefulness. It isn’t until moments of painful adolescence crack the polish, and his bravado falters that he becomes someone to root for.
Meanwhile, unlike the strange boy-man Gary, Alana is a little immature for 25. She’s coarse, unrefined, bickers childishly with her sisters (played by her real sisters and bandmates Este and Danielle Haim) and is pathetically desperate to be liked and found attractive by powerful men.
Despite her impulsion to appeal to inappropriate men, Alana is, above all, a fighter (“like an English pit bull”, says a casting agent in one scene). This is never more evident than when she drives a small lorry with no fuel, backwards, down the winding roads of San Fernando in the middle of the night.
The film is almost episodic, and each slice shows a new adventure: Gary and Alana go to New York, Alana auditions for a film, Gary does PR for a Japanese restaurant, Gary and Alana run out of petrol. Many of these are anecdotes fished from the life of actor and producer Gary Goetzman, who is a loose inspiration for the lead and, as a result, the film has an air of an older man reflecting on his youth.
The structure keeps the film pacey, despite its length, but also makes it difficult to keep track of who and what we’re rooting for as the plot free wheels out into all directions.
On the surface, each scene appears unrelated to the next, but there are two threads stringing them all together; the love story between Alana and Gary and the one between Paul Thomas Anderson and the San Fernando Valley in the seventies.
There are shots where Alana looks like a stroppy, unremarkable woman and others where she appears as Gary sees her; supernaturally vivacious, seductive, and glowingly beautiful; the Valley and the Santa Monica hills are shot exclusively in this adoring manner.
Even the humblest arcade of boring shops (not least the aforementioned waterbed emporium) are shown to be something heady and sparkling.
The magnetic push and pull between the leads is not only charming but also credible, in spite of their unusual age gap.
Watching the film’s trailer, I wondered whether 25-year-old Alana might be manipulating 15-year-old Gary, or whether Gary might be abusing his position as Alana’s employer.
Half an hour into the film, these became stupid questions — no one but equals would have a pathetic fight over who is cooler — and the pair’s inability to stay out of each other’s orbits is clearly something far greater than quibbling over a nine-year age gap.
This is part of the beauty in setting this story — which could easily fit any decade — in the seventies. Complex questions around power dynamics are not asked, and Licorice Pizza does not offer any answers.
This is a credit to the actors, Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman, whose age gap is even wider than their characters’. Despite this being the singer’s first acting role, Haim is especially brilliant, bringing the heat when it’s demanded (both anger and sex) but also the warmth.
At one point, after thinking she was being asked on a date, Alana unwittingly becomes involved in Joel Wach’s complicated plot to remain in the closet and she has to walk Wach’s side-lined, miserable boyfriend home.
They’ve both been dumped, but Alana’s unquestioning and easy kindness in this instance shows her slow arrival toward a new maturity.
In a false and seedy era and in a place where everyone is trying to manipulate themselves into the most profitable position, this film is an ode to authenticity.
Despite the unsavoury elements of the era and entertainment industry being on full show, through earnest adolescent eyes, Licorice Pizza shows the California of the seventies as a time of simple innocence and heart.