Licorice Pizza

directed by Paul Thomas Anderson - 5/10

Since the release of Licorice Pizza, the discourse about it has mostly equated to “this movie shows a thing I don’t like, therefore it is in favor of that thing.” It's a lazy way to discredit a movie, and it's mostly due to the fact that American audiences are absolutely inept at decoding a “depiction does not equal endorsement” narrative. I saw lots of people completely disregarding it, because it mishandled racism and predatory behavior, and lots of people claiming it is a tender masterpiece about young adulthood, and both groups claiming the others were ignorant and blind. However, upon watching the film, I realized that Licorice Pizza simply was too thoughtless and unimportant to warrant the criticism or praise devoted to it.

This is the second time that I’ve felt this way about a popular 2021 movie (the first being Don’t Look Up), but for a very different reason. Don’t Look Up was trying to drum up controversy, while Licorice Pizza seems to be doing the opposite. The outcome is the same: heated discussions about the films’ validity while, to me, they both seem like boring and unimportant stories that would be totally irrelevant without this wave of controversy and debate. 

The first aspect of Licorice Pizza that sparked discourse is that it features a relationship between a 25-year-old and a 15-year-old. Initially, the basis of what draws them together seems intriguing: Gary (played by Cooper Hoffman) is full of an intoxicating optimism with his full life ahead of him, while Alana (played by Alana Haim) is filled with dread as she grapples with adulthood. However, the characters lack so much chemistry and almost every interaction between them is mind-numbingly dull and shallow that calling the film an endorsement of their potentially predatory relationship seems like a far cry. 

The second controversy regards the character of Jerry Frick (played by John Michael Higgins), a white man who owns a Japanese restaurant and puts on an offensive Japanese accent when he speaks to his employees in hopes of “translating” English for them. The scenes are always portrayed in a comical light, but one would guess that Jerry’s ignorance towards his own racism would be the butt of the joke. It’s a joke about racism, not a racist joke, right? It would seem like that was the intent, but the scenes are so poorly written that it's impossible to parse out the meta-context of the humor, leaving the viewer cringing and wondering what the audience reaction was intended to be. I think it's hard to argue that Paul Thomas Anderson was trying to make light of anti-Japanese racism, but any attempts he made to humorously provide commentary to ignorant white chauvinism are completely lost. 

Barring the controversy, Licorice Pizza’s biggest flaw is that it is terribly structured. Anderson very clearly wanted to tell a plotless and lifelike story, and certain individual scenes translate this desire well. However, this episodic structure falls apart because of how poorly pieced together the scenes are. When Anderson wants to transition between moments, he decides to include a scene of the protagonists running through a generic Southern California landscape while a ‘70s anthem blares in the background, and then cuts to the next scene from there. This trope is employed a laughable number of times. 

Another facet of the poor structure is the disorienting cameos from big name actors (Sean Penn, Bradley Cooper, Maya Rudolph) which pop up out of nowhere. The scenes are peppered with these odd cameos with the apparent intent of adding strange personalities intertwined with the lives of the protagonists. Unfortunately, with the exception of Bradley Cooper’s character, they result in out of place and forgettable moments that ultimately serve no purpose. In fact, until the ending, many of the moments in the film feel like they serve no purpose at all. It’s clearly a feature of Paul Thomas Anderson’s desire to tell a lifelike story, but this ambition is totally undermined by the denouement. 

Personally, I find that films with a lifelike nature should never try to wrap everything up with a perfect little bow. When done well, meandering plotlines can result in some of the most naturalistic and relatable stories, but then they have to carry that feeling with them through to the end. A saccharine and cliché ending destroys the lifelike feeling of the narrative. When it concludes, one realizes that Licorice Pizza is an unimportant movie that just misses the mark and is an overall disappointment from a directorial icon.

Licorice Pizza was released on November 26, 2021 and is now streaming on demand.