Contemporary 2021 Selection: Licorice Pizza (2021)

 Paul Thomas Anderson's "Licorice Pizza"

Licorice Pizza tells the coming of age story of 15 year old Gary Valentine and 25 year old Alana Kane as they navigate the San Fernando Valley in 1973. Gary, played by Cooper Hoffman, is a high school student who is constantly coming up with entrepreneurial schemes to get by. Alana, played by musician Alana Haim, has become stagnant and doesn't know which direction she should go in life. As the two try to make it in the adult world, it becomes clear that growing up is a lot more arduous than they thought.

Gary tries to act like an adult through all his business schemes and they way he postures himself. He is an actor, has a PR company, a waterbed company, and a pinball arcade. He is constantly throwing himself into different ventures, trying on different hats to find out what he wants to do in life. He hangs out with his 15 year old friends but spends his free time in the 'adult' world.

Alana is stuck in life. She still lives at home with her parents and doesn't have a career plan for life. The current job she holds is taking pictures of students at high schools. When she meets Gary, she becomes motivated to throw herself into hustling in the adult world, joining Gary in his business ventures. 

As they navigate the adult landscape, they begin to see just how unstable it actually is, and how unstable the adults themselves are. Alana begins to uncover just how immature the adults are in one particular scene. To her left, Gary and his 15 year old friends are simulating jacking off with gas hoses while on her right, Jon Peters rages out on the street, knocking over newsstands and breaking storefront windows. The adulthood she envisioned has left her disillusioned by the reality of what it is: adults stuck in childish behaviors and ways of thinking. To mitigate this, she joins Joel Wachs in his run for political office. But even here, she learns just how much you have to compromise yourself to fit in to the adult world. Because of this, Alana runs back to Gary and the comfort of youth, as Gary runs to her and the promise of adulthood.

There is plenty of dark political and social unrest seeping into the lives of the characters throughout the film. Whether it be the gas shortage, government restrictions, Vietnam, Nixon's unraveling, and the paranoia by Wachs of his political career being over by being publicly uncloseted. With the social and political chaos happening in 2021, perhaps Anderson is reminding contemporary viewers of how social uncertainty is not a new concept. Perhaps this corruption at the seems of the story is directly affecting the immaturity of the characters. Perhaps all the characters, including the adults, are running back to childish things as an antidote to the social unrest of the adult world.

Anderson at this stage of his career has far more subtlety as a director than in his flashy earlier work. One notable element that stands out is the looseness with which the story is told. As the characters are running free trying to make it in the world, the breeziness with which we follow along is apparent. Slow push-ins, tracking shots, and lens flares allow the viewer to become encompassed in the world with the characters.

Licorice Pizza is a coming of age story through and through. The immature protagonists navigate the adult world, only for them to discover its corruption and compromise. The protagonist choose to run away from this certain future and run to a forgotten past in the hopes of being free again.