Licorice Pizza

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

2021 / 133min / 35mm

A warm, funny, and altogether irresistible coming of age tale set in a c. 1973 San Fernando Valley—the same environs in which Anderson was himself raised—that’s reproduced with the director’s precise eye for particulars, this wistful charmer depicts the touch-and-go romance between a teenage go-getter, Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman), and Alana Kane, a driftless twentysomething. The part of Kane was custom-tailored to Alana Haim, for whose band, Haim, Anderson has to-date directed or co-directed eight music videos, here making her acting debut—per the Los Angeles Times, “the star of this boisterous, bighearted movie and its raison d’être.” A poignant portrait of first love and a snapshot of Southern California in the midst of cultural flux, with an array of oddball supporting characters played by the likes of Bradley Cooper, Tom Waits, and Benny Safdie.

Distributor: Park Circus