Notes on Licorice Pizza
There is a scene in Licorice Pizza, where Cooper Hoffman, the fresh-faced son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, auditions for a commercial for a three piece suit as he tries to build on his successes as a child actor. The premise of the advert is that the suit can be worn three ways - smart, smart-casual and casual - and Hoffman’s Gary demonstrates this by doing a few quick-changes, delivering the selling points of this triple threat in a few lines of exaggerated dialogue before racing off camera to complete another change. While the camera for the commercial remains fixed, Paul Thomas Anderson’s camera moves watchfully as he nips on screen and off, traversing the boundary between shiny Hollywood promise and a sweatier, more breathless reality. We see the illusion of the quick-change from the perspective of the on-screen camera, but we also see the labour behind the trick, the comedy of a young man trying to fake it until he makes it.
The numerous auditions in the film, which depict Hollywood reality and fiction simultaneously, reminded me of Mullholland Drive’s scene where Betty auditions for a part. Even though Lynch makes it clear that what we’re watching is artifice, Betty’s performance is so captivating and convincing that we temporarily forget that what we’re seeing is fiction. Lynch is emphasising the hypnotic power of cinema showing us how the magic trick of cinema works, but tricking us again anyway. (Robin Collins’ review is excellent and explores some of these ideas in more detail).
This tension at the heart of cinema encapsulates what I found so interesting about the film - it’s a love letter to 1970s Hollywood, tinged with a self-aware nostalgia and presented through the lens of youthful innocence and exuberance. Even the casting of Hoffman carries a trace of the past, his face reflecting a departed predecessor and departed cinema. The film is obviously not as subversive as Mullholland Drive, and does not deconstruct the Hollywood myth with the same kind of Lynchian mystery and disruption; but there is a playfulness and wistfulness about the presentation of Hollywood in the film.
The heart of the film is the will-they-won’t-they romance between Hoffman’s zealous 15 year old Gary, and the 25 year old Alana, played brilliantly by Alana Haim, who offers a skeptical raised eyebrow in response to Gary’s naive advances but is charmed nonetheless. Gary is a salesman wise beyond his years, an embodiment of the American dream - if the American dream is about making a small amount of money from selling the ‘waterbeds of the future’ and organizing pinball events, which it probably is. Alana is quickly roped into Gary’s schemes and the various escapades that the duo breeze through together mean the narrative is always unpredictable.
The freewheeling plot unfolds at its own pace, from Gary being arrested for murder in a case of mistaken identity, to Sean Penn’s bizarre attempt to ride a motorbike over a flaming bunker on a golf course, to an unhinged cameo from Bradley Cooper on a hunt for gasoline during a 1973 shortage. The meandering, episodic nature of the story means that another editor might have trimmed a few of these subplots - but the ambling tempo is exactly what makes the film such a comfortable watch.
Upon the gentle swing of the plot’s time signature, Jonny Greenwood’s delicate theme often comes to the forefront, enhancing the feelings of wonder and joy - and potentially melancholy - that we get from a film so wrapped up in nostalgia. It’s never boring, rarely tense, always endearing.
Yet the age difference between the two means there’s an uneasiness about their potential relationship and the audience is never afforded the kind of comfortable cadence of a stereotypical Hollywood romance. Gary is both ‘kid’ and ‘man’ to Alana, as she points out in the opening scene.
But there’s a whimsy and charm within their shared looks and playful dialogue, an onscreen chemistry accentuated by the fact that neither are the typical hyper-beautiful romantic leads. There’s an innocence and sexlessness about the film - a bit of teenage kissing but nothing more - and although Gary might protest otherwise, his puppy-dog affections for Alana are rendered somewhat platonic by his childlike earnestness. Whilst the age difference does add a subversive element, there is still joy to be found in their bond.
One of the most striking scenes features the two running together, which literally embodies the escapism offered in their tale - not just because Gary is escaping from the police, but because there is a poetic, transcendent quality about the slow-motion shots of the pair running side by side. The slowing down of these images emphasises the artifice of the scene’s construction but heightens its beauty, and in the affectionate glances shared between the two as they run side by side, we too enjoy the warmth of the moment, a glimpse of emotional sincerity away from the zaniness of the rest of the plot. Whilst the film is knowingly self-aware in its nostalgic indulgences, its presentation of youth and Hollywood, there is an empathy at the core of the film and within its characters. It is as if, like Gary in his audition, Anderson moves between two boundaries, between the comedy of Hollywood pastiche and the serious sincerity of feeling at the heart of great cinema.