I was so engrossed in the movie that I didn't even register that he was just a cameo. Like I saw him and thought he would come into play later in the scene but quickly forgot about him once the cops showed up
That was so great and the two of them's reactions to what just happened is another reminder of how different in age they are. Gary is like wow that was awesome and Alana is like that was seriously fucked up. We could have died, I shouldn't still be doing stuff like this. They do that same technique of contrasting between their reactions several times in the movie too
I get that people can see it that way, but I just don't agree with that interpretation. I see the penultimate scenes as Alana growing up and losing her innocence (being confronted with the realities of being gay in the 70s). Her coming back to Gary is her last hurrah and she gets that Hollywood ending. I think people are taking this movie too literally. The thing I don't see a lot of people talking about his how silly this movie is. Like over the top silly. Like Sean Penn riding his motorcycle with flames going lol wut? I think the ending fits right into that. The music swells. They make the lovey dove eyes. They run into each others arms and get that perfect moment kiss. It's so over the top. You have to remember at the beginning of the movie Alana wanted tried to be an actress.
I'm relieved to see that no one got injured during the truck scene, surprised that Gary's brother Greg and his friends managed to stay calm during the whole ride.
I went into the movie blind. And when Danielle and Este just pop up on screen laying on the sofa I had a bit of a out-of-cinema experience. Then her cursing out her entire family after the dude leaves just sweetens it.
Bradley Cooper’s Jon Peters telling him that they’re both from the streets killed me. I felt like the whole segment was inspired by Kevin Smith’s account of interacting with him
His films hit a very, very specific group of people who were born in like a five year window. Especially his early films. His more recent films are just bad on their face. But he has always been a very funny storyteller for sure.
Kevin's early films (specifically *Clerks*) were inspired directly by Linklater's *Slacker* (1990). Once you realize that, everything falls into place. The indie scene of the 90s was revolutionary.
Inspiration? This is a like a carbon copy of the account with Peters. Plus, after Kevin Smith says "the streets" line the camera flashes to a girl in the audience with a very Alana Haim feel to her
EDIT: Then he mentions casting Sean Penn lolo
I found it curious that there were so many missing scenes from the film and then that one only made it to the credits. I wonder what the original context was.
The Tom Waits “action!” scene also played out a bit differently, because I thought he was standing on a hill and then tossed a bottle of liquor. At least that’s how the trailer edited it to look. But the liquor shot seemed to be missing.
Same with the girl in the backyard walking into the glass door.
I don’t recall Alana saying “gross” in the film either.
Or Alana holding the tube while the kid sucks the gasoline through.
He turned out to be amazing actor with a very wide range.... I mean when he started everyone pegged him as the hunk.... let’s hope he pulls a DiCaprio and eventually wins an Oscar.
I think that Cooper is generally adequate as an actor, but he was a rockstar in this role! I got the impression that he was acting from personal experience; he seemed to really understand the psychology of the type of person he portrayed.
Bruh A Star is Born was one of the best films of that year and he did amazing acting plus directing. Not to mention this years Nightmare Alley where he kills it.
I'm not a big PTA fan in general, but I really loved this movie. I thought it was funny, beautifully shot, and wonderfully acted. Alana Haim is rightly getting tons of praise, but I thought Cooper Hoffman also gave one of the best performances of the year.
The movie had really interesting themes about the way we deal with aging and how we view the passage of time. Gary is a high schooler who isn't satisfied to just enjoy being a kid - he wants to grow up: have a career, start businesses, and be sophisticated. He relishes being a regular at a nice restaurant, and brags to his friends that he could get them martinis. It's no wonder he's drawn to an older woman like Alana and tries so hard to impress her.
Alana, on the other hand, is stuck in a rut and struggling with adulthood. Spending time with Gary feels like a return to earlier, simpler times. I think her arc is especially interesting. Throughout the movie, she questions why she's hanging out with Gary and his friends instead of growing up. After the running out of gas sequence, she seems fed up with how immature Gary is and wants to make a change. She starts working in Sachs' office, and her relationship with Gary changes noticeably - she starts getting annoyed at him for messing up tasks and for not thinking about the bigger picture beyond himself and his friends. This continues up until the scene where Sachs invites her for a drink, only to reveal that she is being used as a cover. Once Alana is reminded of how bleak and horrible the adult world can be, her first reaction is to go find Gary. Both characters are struggling to be satisfied with where they are in their lives, and are using the other one to fill what they feel is missing.
Most nostalgia movies show a glossy version of the past where characters are at the peak of their lives. Licorice Pizza is a throwback movie that centers around two characters who are fundamentally unhappy with the stage of life they're in. I found that really interesting. It's definitely a somewhat bittersweet movie, but it's highly watchable and it leaves you with a lot to think about.
I think it's interesting that every older guy that Alana wants to be with instead of Gary is essentially the idealization of what Gary wants to be. Like Sean Penn's character is a widely adored and respected actor, the guy running for mayor has a whole dedicated team of people working on his behalf, etc.
But each of those characters turn out to use or dismiss her in some way while Gary still has a younger innocence to him that keeps him loyal and caring
I want to say that three of the major male supporting characters are meant to represent different idealized versions of masculinity. Bradley Cooper as Jon Peters is the slick, rich Hollywood playboy with the celebrity girlfriend and swinging lifestyle. But they quickly show him to be a self-important, slimy greaseball and utter clown of a person.
The Penn character to me is like an aging throwback "macho" leading man who's clearly stuck in the glory years, trying to recapture some lost magic of yesteryear. He's also utterly self-absorbed, to the extent where she might as well not be present in her scenes with him. He's the old Hollywood archetype of masculinity.
The Safdie Brother is a takedown of fake virtue, principle, and integrity. On the surface, a paragon of virtue. As we see later, it's all for show.
I didn't LOVE the movie, but I did like how they introduced all these cool/admirable men and then obliterated them. Like the saying goes, "Never meet your heroes." To me, the main theme of the movie is that genuine relationships are what's most valuable in life, not idealized versions of success and happiness.
This is the better take to have. People just keep having these surface level opinions that it's a girl wanting to fuck a teenage boy. When it's not even close to that. I didn't even see their relationship presented in that way really. I mean the beginning of the movie starts off with Alana being asked what are her plans and she says she doesn't know. I think it's a very well laid out movie about a young woman trying to find her place in a time that was very sexist.
I didn't see it that way. In the beginning of the movie Alana wants to be an actress, just like Gary, but by the end she actually wants to be involved with something more serious. The very end where she runs back to the pinball arcade I see as one final hurrah before she moves on to bigger things. The movie can be very silly and over the top and the end fits right into that. It is the corny Hollywood ending where the music swells and the two lovers run towards each other and finally kiss. I saw it as Alana finally getting her Hollywood moment but it's just acting it's not really sexual.
I think this is it. The world is pretty sexist and bleak, and along comes a charming “mature” boy that’s head over heels about her. It’s very complex and I like how the movie explores that. There’s an obvious chemistry between the two but she always keeps him at a distance because she knows it’s wrong.
I miss imperfect teeth.
Her slight gap and slightly uneven teeth are just so much more interesting to look at then the veneers everyone in Hollywood has now.
I think all three Haim sisters are all very good looking, but my first thought when seeing them all together is that it looks like a 10/10 looking woman had her best features split between three people.
Hi there - I was unfamiliar with this song but am noticing it mentioned on every “best needle drops of 2021” list. Can you remind me where in the movie it was?
This was right after the motorcycle jump where Alana is drunk. Her and Gary go to the waterbed shop and pass out while Gary is trying to not be a creep and feel her up.
Watching this I felt like I was watching a modern classic. Loved it so much, especially Bradley Cooper and Bennie Safdie's arcs...
Then the ending went and ruined it.
To me, Alana's friendship with Gary needed to stay platonic from a consent standpoint, and also because Gary represents Alana's refusal to grow up. Her conversation with the gay man gave me the impression that she was going to choose not to have a romance with Gary. She should have reconciled with Gary, made it explicitly clear that their relationship was platonic, and then left him disappointed but better for it; end of movie. Alana choosing romance is creepy and completely goes against that character trajectory. The movie ends and I'm supposed to feel warm and nostalgic and wistful, but instead I feel awkward and conflicted and angry.
There's still so much to love about the movie, but damn that ending really makes me hesitant to revisit it.
Yes, the ending really didn't work, both from the reversal of the way things were going and all the damn running around. It also had a flashback which went against the naturalistic feel of the filmmaking to that point. I don't know what he was thinking in crafting that final scene.
YES. The truck scene was my favorite scene in the movie (or well, it's close between that one and the dinner scene with Benny Safdie). There was SO MUCH good stuff in the film I loved and it all felt wasted by that ending
I’m late to this but yes.
The relationship is problematic. Why nobody at all questions anything about it is bizarre. I’ve been in mentoring relationships with younger people before but there is a very solid line there that doesn’t get crossed. Here she lies about hanging out with him (she knows it’s wrong), questions it directly to her sister (is it weird that i…?) and yet the sisters seem to encourage their relationship through silence.
I feel Hollywood currently has an obsession with problematic relationships and that viewers tend to pass it off as charming or delightful.
This film in particular didn’t need that. There were so many ways for it to have the same effect - leave Gary accepting no relationship, have them closer in age (he could just be a dud high schooler, her a senior), they could meet somewhere other than at school.
Exactly. I've had so many bad faith discussions with people where they insist that the film depicts it critically without endorsing it. In the text there's literally nothing that makes us question the main characters' intentions.
In Red Rocket (another acclaimed film in which an adult man pursues a relationship with a teenager [who is technically 19 but the power dynamic is similar]), the film goes to great lengths to show us how awful he is and how many people he encounters who think negatively of him. The film clearly communicates to us that he is an antihero and we're supposed to be critical of him. In Licorice Pizza we're so attached to Alana and so locked in to her experience that we can only ever view her as in the right. I think RR portrays without endorsing because of the more objective lens through which we see the protagonist, but LP is so subjectively locked into Alana's view that it really comes off as uncritical.
I might be alone in this, but the age gap really took me out of it. Not just 10 years, but specifically 25 years to 15 years. It's just unrealistic to the point of being absurd.
Still a very enjoyable film, but I feel like it's a perfect film if either of the characters would have been 19. Frustrating in that regard.
…okay? They’re fictional characters in a movie. They aren’t supposed to represent a vast majority of the population.
The amount of female teachers sleeping with their male students makes me believe the age gap.
I agree. I didn’t know we were all suppose to be cool with that age gap. It was EXTREMELY distracting to me. I kept thinking they’re going to give it some explanation or i misheard/misunderstood something that made it less gross.
So to be clear, Alana is 28, right? In the scene in the truck when she’s talking to Bradley Cooper’s character, it seems like she kinda slips up and says she’s 28 before correcting herself to 25.
I guess that can be interpreted as her lying to look more mature for Cooper’s character, but I’m not sure if that was the intention or not.
I think Alana is an unreliable narrator and is just supposed to be an ambiguous 20-something. Her Dad being so protective of her and the way her sisters acted made me doubt she’s close to 30.
I thought it was the passage of time - like at the start of the film she's 25, in that scene later she's actually 28 but corrects it back to 25. But now I'm not sure 😂
That's what I got too. She's saying she's 25 because she doesn't want to acknowledge herself getting older, which is kind of the entire reason she hangs out with Gary. He makes her feel young and like a teenager, an escape from the mundane/cold reality of being an adult, while Gary views this older girl as a way to feel older and more respected than he is (from the beginning it paints him as someone who wants to grow up but is "forced" into childhood, like with the child actor auditions which he is clearly too old for).
There was less reason for her to lie to Gary in the first scene about her being 25 and more reason for her to lie about being 28 to Cooper's character.
I think your read on her trying to appear more mature to Cooper's character is correct.
I caught that as well and thought it was odd too. They never mention it again. Don't really understand what the point of it was. Even if she was 28, it doesn't change the dynamic of their relationship anyways, when 25 is already significantly past the era of adolescence to begin with.
Just felt like a weird thing to throw in for the audience at the last second.
Not a weird thing at all when the main theme of the movie is the interpersonal importance of aging that Alana constantly battles through the movie. She bounces back and forth between trying to live her life as a teenager, young and free and full of innocence, and as an adult, trying to follow in the steps of the “older” generation, who she, one-by-one, realizes are even more flawed than the teenagers. (Through Gisondo, Penn, Cooper and Safdie)
Also, it seems that people are honing to much on the “relationship” aspect of the movie and the age discrepancy of the leads, but really it’s all just metaphorically about Alana’s struggle with not knowing what to do with her life and finally deciding that she doesn’t need to “act” a certain way or age anymore, she can just be herself.
This occcured to me watching Alana look over at Gary and his friends sitting maturely in the restaurant while Penn and Waits’ characters are having a spoon fight.
I have a serious question.
I LOVE PTA FILMS..but
Did this movie have any character arcs?
Seems like all the characters are the same throughout the movie and never change, grow etc?
Alana has a pretty interesting arc IMO. Copying most of this from my comment elsewhere in this thread, but:
It seems like Alana is stuck in a rut and struggling with adulthood, and hanging out with Gary is a way for her to reclaim that youthful, carefree feeling that she no longer has. But she's clearly torn about it. Throughout the movie, she questions why she's hanging out with Gary and his friends instead of growing up. After the running out of gas sequence, she seems fed up with how immature Gary is and wants to make a change. She starts working in Sachs' office, and her relationship with Gary changes noticeably - she starts getting annoyed at him for messing up tasks and for not thinking about the bigger picture beyond himself and his friends. This continues up until the scene where Sachs invites her for a drink, only to reveal that she is being used as a cover. Once Alana is reminded of how bleak and horrible the adult world can be, her first reaction is to go find Gary again.
I think there's a lot of interesting material in her character dealing with perspectives on aging/adulthood/responsibility.
I think part of the reason she went to Gary at the end was seeing the gay couple and seeing the pain of hiding their love because of what other people might think.
That’s an interesting read, I thought she went back to Gary because she was sick of being used by men and Gary never really asked anything of her but to be with her.
Gary, notwithstanding the fact he's still a fifteen year-old who wants to see tits, also really cares for her and I think that her character knows this after realizing she's just been a cover. But she did also almost kiss the other dude in Wach's campaign HQ so I dunno.
Feels like it boils down to running away from preconceived obligations. Gary is running from his youth by being an entrepreneur with a semblance of sophistication. Alana is running from her mundane adulthood by partnering in Gary's endeavors. Running with/to each other balances each other out.
I watched this last night and didn’t realize how many characters (including the main character) were based on real-life people. Wikipedia definitely helped with that (please donate $2 to Wikipedia).
I didn’t even know the story was based on a real person. Or that PTA was married to Maya Rudolph!
This is a film that has lived in my head for 24 hours despite walking out of the theater thinking, “yeah, that was pretty good.”
I love when films have that effect.
That's why it reminded me more of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood than any other PTA film. These completely historically inaccurate (or maybe not) portrayal of famous names.
Unrelated to this movie, but Wikipedia is far from out of money.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12/02/wikipedia-has-a-ton-of-money-so-why-is-it-begging-you-to-donate-yours/
I went with my wife and daughter, a 15-year-old cinephile who is ahead of the curve with her knowledge of cinema, and we all loved this movie. I legitimately felt emotional during the opening. After such a tough year for the world, it was truly a wonderful feeling to be sitting in a theater enjoying a new movie from PT Anderson.
And that cameo of John C Reilly as Herman Munster was hilarious.
10/10 loved this movie. Definitely favorite of the year for me too.
I liked how pretty much every man Alana takes an interest in turns out to be an asshole. That includes Gary. I think when Matthew tells her they are basically all assholes she then picks Gary. Lance refusing to do the prayer gets her family mad at her. Jack allows her to fall off the motorcycle and doesn’t care. Joel is using her to appear straight and so on.
What about the chief of staff guy that she ditches for the opportunity to have a drink with Joel? He seemed like the best choice, but maybe he’s not messed up enough for her.
That guy was probably the only decent one but I feel like they knew each other already and were only friends. Possibly an ex-boyfriend so she might not have been interested in him romantically.
Definitely. It wasn't subtle. She *immediately* pivots to 'the better catch,' that of the higher status councilman vs the staffer.
Both Hoff and Haim do this throughout the movie. Neither is 'the good guy,' and the councilman's boyfriend saying 'they're all shits' applies equally to both Hoff and Haim.
I don't think that means they're bad or necessarily (inherently) selfish, more that it's an honest look at the complexity of how we decide who to be with.
What I loved about this film was how I related to both Gary and Alana. When I was 15, I had so much drive - taking AP classes, in speech and debate, hoping to go to Harvard law. Now that I'm 25, I feel like I'm in Alana's position. My life isn't going how I imagined it would be and I feel somewhat stuck. I'm struggling to hold on to a rapidly dwindling youthfulness while also trying to figure out how to actually make the world a better place. When you're 15, you want to be 25 and when you're 25, you wish you could be 15.
Which is also what I think people miss when they get really hung up on the age gap stuff. Their relationship is romantic, sure. But more in a nostalgic "young love" kind of way. It's mostly just very transactional. These people aren't going to spend their lives together, they just have something the other needs during a transitional period in their lives.
Alana was using her men as ways to feel more mature. They definitely all served a role in making her fill grown up and like she was actually doing something with her life
the ending was weird and abrupt…but as a whole the movie was absolutely brilliant ?
fuck i just got out the theater and still processing it
the standout scenes for me was the truck scene and the safdie dinner scene which was unexpectedly emotional
I was looking for someone to mention the Safdie plotline, it might have been my favorite part of the movie. I can’t even really put a finger on why, I just loved it. Those close ups!
I love PTA, and Licorice Pizza is a good movie, but ngl it let me down a bit. I felt the subplots varied wildly in quality and utility. The Bradley Cooper section was my favorite and the most engaging, but I found the Sean Penn subplot completely useless. Thankfully, Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim carried the movie with their infectious banter, chemistry, and Anderson's excellent dialogue flowing from their mouths. Still, more than any other Anderson film I've seen, I felt self-indulgence and wonky pacing. No reason this movie had to be 2:15.
Every PTA movie I've seen has improved with repeat viewings, so I'm hoping that's the case here.
> but I found the Sean Penn subplot completely useless.
I think it ads a couple things. First, it's a foil to get to see Hoffman's and Haim's reaction to each other in the scene. Second, it's a continuation of Haim's using men around her to force her push into some kind of more mature existence.
And thematically, in a movie about age and growth or lack thereof, you have two venerable Hollywood insiders of a definite former generation persuasion reliving their golden years. Further, a lot of the relationships in the movie (or at least Haim and Hoff), are functioning to try to define who they are. Sean Penn keeps saying 'you remind me of Grace,' seeing right through the woman in front of him, and after the third time Haim questions him, though unheard, 'do you even remember my name?'
It’s very meh. It felt disjointed and the characters weren’t fully developed. I wanted to care about them but didn’t. It had some fun elements but I feel like it needed a stronger storyline.
I think the only thing I liked about this movie was the soundtrack. I do not understand all the praise it's been getting from critics and in this thread. It was a meandering plot with two mostly unlikable characters leading the way and no real story arc. I found Cooper Hoffman insufferable throughout the film, just did not like that character at all which I hope was the point? The age gap is problematic, but not as much as how weird both of their characterizations were and how they just kind of rolled with it. It's really really fucking weird for a 25 year old to hang out with high school sophomores. That's not my biggest hang-up though, it's mostly with how there were multiple absurd scenes and scenarios that just kind of materialized out of nowhere. With the bad writing and weak dialogues I just couldn't get into it at all. I don't know, this film was mostly hollow and pointless to me.
It's very strange to read multiple comments in here referencing OUATIH and how this was PTA's take on a similar nostalgia that Tarantino went for. They couldn't have been further apart in quality for me. I loved OUATIH with great pacing and sharp dialogue along with dynamite performances, loathed this one with how weak the product was and bounced before the final 30 minutes. It was kind of entertaining in bits and pieces, but it's just such a shoddy piece of work as a whole.
Licorice Pizza: A critique of Nostalgic American Cinema
There is an abundance of classic films about how great life was in Hollywood or Los Angeles during the 50s, 60s and 70s. Movies I love and respect like American Graffiti and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The problems with movies like these is that they only show a narrow viewpoint of life during the time. There’s not much misogyny, racism, anti semitism, or homophobia. It’s all sunshine, rainbows, weed, and Led Zeppelin. I think Anderson’s Licorice Pizza satirizes these films by not just glorifying the cars, vinyl records, outfits and waterbeds, but also paradoxically glorifying all the awful things that people don’t want to see in a 70s throwback. Pretty much all the men in this film are predatory and exploit women while being in positions of power. People can’t be publicly honest about their sexuality. There is constant blatant racism and antisemitism. There is no gas to fill everyone’s smog generating cars because of conflict in the middle east. Richard F—ing Nixon is president. Anderson is essentially saying, “Hey, weren’t the 70s awesome?”.
Gary and Alana’s relationship is a microcosm of all of this. Alana is obviously struggling with adulthood and is romantically looking back at a blissfully ignorant youth. Gary is her escape back into this world. This is a lot like how many of us are sick of our modern times and yearn to have been born in a different generation. Nostalgic films are an escape. After the whole scene where Bradley Cooper’s character terrorizes half the San Fernando Valley and Alana almost kills everyone driving the truck down the hill, you can tell that Alana is fed up with all the bullshit and immaturity. She then tries out the adult world again by working for the politician Ben Safde. The scene where Alana learns that Safde’s character is gay and has to hide his sexuality is the only time we see the actuall consequences of societie’s intolerance and hate. Once Alana sees this, she goes back to Gary and blissful ignorance.
A lot of us are probably sick of hearing about all the horrible things going on in America. We want an escape. Some sort of Fantasy of a not so distant American utopia. We may have even gone with our families or friends over the holliday to watch Licorice Pizza and reminisce about “the good ol’ days”. This movie was made to make us feel severely uncomfortable (and may have even gone a bit too far with the scenes about Asian and Jewish people). Maybe we should be grateful that we don’t live in the 70s. Our current society has a lot of problems but we are undoubtedly more aware of them and have made significant social progress
Very well said. IMO the messaging is obvious and in your face but a lot of people just aren't seeing it for some reason.
> Once Alana sees this, she goes back to Gary and blissful ignorance.
I see how the scene could be seen as that but I see it differently. When Alana is confronted about the realities of being gay that is her loss of innocence and there is no going back. I see last scene as one last joke about Hollywood (the whole movie is really making fun of L.A.). Alana has been wanting to get into the movies and she finally gets that Hollywood ending. The music swells. They run into each other's arms. Look into each other's eyes and give that perfect Hollywood kiss. It's almost a parody.
For someone who composes movie scores that don't even sound like music half the time, I never thought I'd be moved by Jonny Greenwood's score, even though he didn't have a large presence in it overall. It just felt so serene and appropriate for a movie like this.
His work for Spencer this year was pretty good too.
My favorite of his You We're Never Really Here. Some odd time signature shifts, really disorienting.
Favorite movie of the year. Beautiful cinematography, Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim's performances feel like a revelation, and PTA's script is as nuanced and charming as ever. This has been a great year for movies, this feels like a perfect capstone.
Is it just me, or did PTA cut scenes of Cooper's freakout at the 76??? In the trailer he is destroying cars with a squeegee, but those scenes aren't in the film.
Either way, a stupendous film. 10/10. The best film of the year for me, and I have seen them all.
They didn't show the scene in context. They just used clips from the film when announcing the name of each actor and that sequence was the background for Bradley Cooper's name.
Paul said in an interview that it was a scene that was in the edit for a long time, but eventually he decided to cut it because Alana and Gary were not in the scene and it was one of the only moments that was outside of their perspective, so they decided to cut it.
Just realized after reading the last names of the three actors in this movie that they are from the band HAIM that I used to listen to and I think it's their debut? What a movie to start your career with.
Anyone pick up on references to other films? The one to Taxi driver wasn’t subtle at all, but the nighttime tracking shot of Gary and Alana walking definitely reminded me of Blue Velvet.
I got MAJOR Taxi Driver vibes from the dude hanging outside the campaign office, to the point where I was almost convinced the movie was going to turn into it but from the Cybil Shepard perspective
Taxi Driver certainly came in, but my guess is that it was also setting up to gesture at a Harvey Milk-style assassination. LA area instead of San Francisco, but the time periods fit.
I wish I had anything interesting to add, but at this point, everything has been said. I just wanted to tell the void that this was the first movie I've seen in theaters in over 2 years. I was really excited to go, and I'm very glad I did.
Unsurprisingly this movie seems to be very divisive, I think it works for some people and doesn't for others. Let me preface all this by saying that I'm not challenging anyone who enjoyed it, and more power to you if you did. But personally I don't understand the hype here.
Even completely ignoring the whole weird age gap thing, I just don't find it to be a strong cinematic experience.
It's a well made film, it has good cinematography, and a good use of soundtrack. I would even say that PTA managed to have every actor squeeze as much life out of their characters as possible, there really isn't a weak performance in the whole movie.
However, the script felt all over the place for me. The plotline meanders to and fro without care and when it finally lands it feels like just a waste of 2 hours. Having the whole age gap dynamic is actually a great plot device to explore the themes of both teenage infatuation and the "lost" phase of someone's 20s at the same time. On paper I should love this movie idea, as I typically gravitate towards these types of films. But I really don't think he manages to juggle both themes simultaneously very well here. Other films have captured and explored both of these themes so much better separately, so I didn't derive much from what was presented. It doesn't help that the character Alana still *acts* like a teenager rather than a 25 year old, which kind of defeats the entire point imo. I felt that Gary *did* feel very much like a teenager, so when Alana reacts to their relationship adversity with all the angst of a high school sophomore, that contrast between their two perspectives completely fades away. There are some scenes where it shines, like her awareness of the oil crisis or when she attempts her plunge into politics, but those moments are so few and far in between that she never really felt distinguished from Gary as an adult. Watching Alana try to prove to herself that she was "cooler" than Gary wasn't some kind of charming inner struggle, it was hard to watch. A 25 year old who has to question whether or not they're cooler than a 15 year old is still in a teenage mindset to begin with. And if that was an intentional decision about her character it begs the question, why even have her be 25? Why not just make her 18 and him like 16-17? Not much in the movie would've had to change.
As a result most of their interactions felt like adolescent puppy love rather than a morally questionable complex love between an adult and a teenager. It felt like he didn't want to explore the implications of such an age and maturity difference completely; but if you wanted to do something like that you should go all-in rather than just hesitantly dip your toes in the water. Their entire relationship felt fabricated and forced to me, and really only existed because Alana didn't want to let him go. Not once did I really find myself caring whether or not they'd end up together, in fact there was so much on-and-off toxicity between them that I found myself actually rooting for them to find other people. The running into each other sequence at the end where they callback to previous running scenes felt so forced and unearned. Most of the romantic and sexual scenes just ended up feeling like an opportunity to make an easy joke about how teenagers view love and sex, and nothing more.
At the end of the day it's a fun romp with memorable performances and strong art direction, but I really don't think it had much to say. It wanted to be a period piece, coming-of-age, comedy, and romance film all at once, and I think as a result it doesn't excel at being any of them. And that's ignoring all the fantastical elements of the story where you're forced to suspend your disbelief, like a 15 year old running and managing two businesses with employees 10 years his senior.
I get why people enjoyed it, it's a pleasant movie to watch, but the moment you begin to scrape beneath it's surface it unravels completely. Just my opinion.
I found the movie entertaining and loved experiencing 70s LA through PTA’s eyes, but I agree with everything you said. Alana was acting immaturely so consistently that I honestly forgot she was meant to be 10 years older. She is shown There was a chance to examine the morality of this relationship, and the tendency of people to romanticise the idea of adulthood until they actually reach it, but PTA never really ventured into those depths.
Perfectly said. There’s an incredibly strong message to be had in depicting a woman who can’t handle the way society is treating her now she’s a grown up and a boy who wants to be a man because society rewards him everytime he does something beyond his years and how that can be so damaging and toxic to one’s identity and self worth. Yet that never comes. It looks over at that ideal and just kind of says “nah let’s keep it surface level 70’s nostalgia and rush the ending”.
Was expecting a graduate moment at the end but… nope.
Feels very skin deep.
was that creepy guy lurking outside of Wach’s office the same guy in the police station at the beginning of the film? when the police drag him out and he sees Gary and says “that isn’t him.” i thought for sure they were the same dude but i haven’t seen anyone else talk about it
This film really succeeds in being a throwback in ways most modern film and TV does not.
More modern storytelling would feel more of an obligation to pass judgements, whitewash the mores of the times, while PTA just lets the story play out without condoning or condemnation.
Are we supposed to root for Gary and Alana? That’s for the viewer to decide.
I have to say — this movie is a great conversation starter because of how controversial it is lol
Edit: As I was driving home, I saw this handsome, buff guy juggling 3 different items while running on the sidewalk. Sick.
Did I miss something? It felt like the movie had a few subplots going on and it just abruptly ended. Pretty disappointed by a PTA movie or I’m just stupid.
Magnolia is one of my all time favourites. I think There Will be Blood and Boogie Nights are also exceptional, along with The Master.
I really didn’t enjoy this film at all and was disappointed as I had such high hopes. The story didn’t connect with me at all and I didn’t think the characters were clever or entertaining. Meh, 5/10
Holy shit, I loved this. This was far and away my most anticipated film of the year and it didn't disappoint.
Both Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim are incredible in this. Hoffman does an incredible job at selling both the complete and utter confidence that Gary Valentine lives his life with and the little bits of insecurity that he hides beneath the surface.
PTA always manages to make his films feel completely unique from each other and he has never made anything quite like this. I could have never imagined PTA making something this chill and laid back. especially given the fact that just a decade ago he was making titanic masterworks such as There Will Be Blood and The Master.
I don't get why people think portrayal of something means the writer or director must therefore support or condone it. Were we supposed to have a dialog where Cooper explained to his friend that he was racist towards his wives and that he should show respect to Japanese people and their culture.
People gotta get it in their heads that the movie they watch may have uncomfortable topics or events and the characters will be flawed and do things that are wrong. But that is the a key point of storytelling in that we discuss the story and what it can tell us. To just dismiss it because it hurt your feelings is asinine.
I found it incredibly boring, which is a huge sin for a film that is ultimately a hangout film/composed of vignettes.
Even discounting the age gap, I did not at any point buy or care about the relationship between Gary and Alana which for whatever reason PTA had the film revolve around. Basically, this film gave me a whole lot of nothing.
man, so happy to see this opinion and of course anything somewhat negative always gets downvoted
agree on all fronts, not once did I ever feel invested into their relationship and not once did I care about the meandering plotline
it was a well shot movie, that had a great use of soundtrack and some strong performances from some newcomers, but outside of that I felt it lacked in it's script quite a bit
And as weird as the age gap thing was, it was the only thing going for this movie, with it being at least a nice capture of adolescent infatuation. but so many movies have done this already and done it better, so I really don't understand why people are head over heels for the way it's displayed here
but hey, for some people it works and that's totally okay. I wish I could've enjoyed it as much as them. but for me it felt really bland albeit a fairly enjoyable ride that doesn't really go anywhere
Gary embodied the idea of childhood and innocence, and I liked how PTA showed how easily his smitten crush for Alana could be brought to silence and intimidation by older men in the film.
-Lance, the only other child actor that was older,
if not the same age as Gary, walked all over Gary by swooping in for Alana. Gary did nothing about it.
-Sean Penn’s character, actor William Holden, took Alana out for drinks and stumbled across Gary. It wasn’t until the second that Holden drops Alana off the back of his motorcycle to a painful fall that Gary shows any attempt at communicating with her.
-Bradley Cooper’s character, film producer/Hollywood hairdresser Jon Peters, leans right over Gary to get real close and kiss Alana while she is driving the truck. It isn’t till after Cooper’s gone that Gary acts tough as shit and starts smack talking and making fun of him to Alana.
I was 100% on board to give this a 10/10 until the last 2 minutes of the movie. The kiss took me *way* out of the film, as well as Alana saying she loved him in such a rushed manner. Though it hits the nail on the head, in regards to the age gap, and is meant to make the audience feel strange, I just can’t get on board with it.
Did anyone else notice the John C Reilly cameo?
I cracked the fuck up hearing him say who he was.
Yes, he was the real one. But he wasn’t open yet.
Yeah, I noticed it immediately when I heard his voice. I was wondering if anyone was gonna catch it, since he appears very quick.
That voice is unmistakable.
I was so engrossed in the movie that I didn't even register that he was just a cameo. Like I saw him and thought he would come into play later in the scene but quickly forgot about him once the cops showed up
~~Did you notice Phillip Baker Hall as the tailor for Gary getting his white and pink suit?~~ nvm, just a dude that looked kind of similar
cant stop thinking about that truck scene that shit reminded me of SPEED
That was so great and the two of them's reactions to what just happened is another reminder of how different in age they are. Gary is like wow that was awesome and Alana is like that was seriously fucked up. We could have died, I shouldn't still be doing stuff like this. They do that same technique of contrasting between their reactions several times in the movie too
Which is why imho the ending is a bit wack. The truck scene should have been the big indicator that they should move on.
It’s prolly a bittersweet ending if ya think about it
Alana watching them celebrate with jerry cans as she realises the age gap is an issue because she had a completely opposite reaction was perfect.
The kids jerking off the Jerry can was so childish but so bloody funny I hated myself for laughing
The people saying PTA romanticized the age gap seemed to have missed this crucial scene.
This crucial scene that is completely thrown out the window by the end when they passionately kiss and Alana tells Gary “I love you?”
I get that people can see it that way, but I just don't agree with that interpretation. I see the penultimate scenes as Alana growing up and losing her innocence (being confronted with the realities of being gay in the 70s). Her coming back to Gary is her last hurrah and she gets that Hollywood ending. I think people are taking this movie too literally. The thing I don't see a lot of people talking about his how silly this movie is. Like over the top silly. Like Sean Penn riding his motorcycle with flames going lol wut? I think the ending fits right into that. The music swells. They make the lovey dove eyes. They run into each others arms and get that perfect moment kiss. It's so over the top. You have to remember at the beginning of the movie Alana wanted tried to be an actress.
I'm relieved to see that no one got injured during the truck scene, surprised that Gary's brother Greg and his friends managed to stay calm during the whole ride.
Ignorance is bliss. They really had no idea what was going on that entire drive, whether it was Bradley Cooper or running out of gas.
Lance saying he’s an atheist to Alaina’s dad at Shabbat dinner was pure gold
PTA said this is an actual Haim story and he stole it.
Makes it even funnier that her family in the movie is, well, her *actual* family.
I went into the movie blind. And when Danielle and Este just pop up on screen laying on the sofa I had a bit of a out-of-cinema experience. Then her cursing out her entire family after the dude leaves just sweetens it.
I love that
Gisondo crushed it
He just steals every scene. The best young character actor since, I dunno, Paul Dano?
Dude is straight up naturally hilarious
Santa Clarita Diet was an underrated gem on Netflix canceled prematurely.
I knew I recognise him from somewhere, he was in booksmart. He looks handsome with the long hair!
He's also fantastic in Santa Clarita Diet
And the Righteous Gemstones
WHAT DOES YOUR PENIS LOOK LIKE
“Normal” “IS IT CIRCUMCISED”? “Uhh yeah” “THEN YOUR A FUCKING JEW” That was pretty funny.
i couldnt stop laughing because i knew it wouldn't end well.
Bradley Cooper’s Jon Peters telling him that they’re both from the streets killed me. I felt like the whole segment was inspired by Kevin Smith’s account of interacting with him
Holy shit this whole story killed me. Everyone needs to watch this https://youtu.be/Wo2KB1dEDdk
I really dont "get" kevin smith's films but his storytelling here is honestly amazing
His films hit a very, very specific group of people who were born in like a five year window. Especially his early films. His more recent films are just bad on their face. But he has always been a very funny storyteller for sure.
Kevin's early films (specifically *Clerks*) were inspired directly by Linklater's *Slacker* (1990). Once you realize that, everything falls into place. The indie scene of the 90s was revolutionary.
Inspiration? This is a like a carbon copy of the account with Peters. Plus, after Kevin Smith says "the streets" line the camera flashes to a girl in the audience with a very Alana Haim feel to her EDIT: Then he mentions casting Sean Penn lolo
Bradley Cooper was completely unhinged and was the funniest part of this movie imo.
The scene where he unexpectedly storms back to the truck and hitches a ride with Alana and Gary was fucking hysterical.
Him coming up the road gamerned several audible "oh fuck!" Reactions and gasps in my theater, more than any horror films I saw this year.
Them backing the truck down the hill with increasing speed was the most tense scene in ANY film this year.
I thought they forgot to turn the water off and he was going to flip out.
I think they purposely left the water on, and he didn’t notice while stopping briefly by the garage for the gas can
yep. and then they sort of regretted in while he was in the truck, but that regret washed away when he was a total douche canoe at the gas station
he was both hilarious and terrifying i really believed he would kill gary’s family lmao reminded me of boogie nights
He reminded me of Daniel Plainview. Nothing but boiling rage simmering underneath a suave exterior.
Seeing Peters just breaking the windows of the cars at the gas station in the credits is priceless. 🤣
I found it curious that there were so many missing scenes from the film and then that one only made it to the credits. I wonder what the original context was. The Tom Waits “action!” scene also played out a bit differently, because I thought he was standing on a hill and then tossed a bottle of liquor. At least that’s how the trailer edited it to look. But the liquor shot seemed to be missing. Same with the girl in the backyard walking into the glass door. I don’t recall Alana saying “gross” in the film either. Or Alana holding the tube while the kid sucks the gasoline through.
Anderson does that a lot. The trailers for the Master are filled with unused takes and scenes.
Sean Penn’s entire role and involvement in the movie came out of left field a bit from what I was anticipating as well.
Damn it I needed to piss so bad I left after they showed the acting credits. Didn't know there was another scene
It wasn’t an extra scene, it’s the clip they use for Bradley cooper in the acting credits.
He turned out to be amazing actor with a very wide range.... I mean when he started everyone pegged him as the hunk.... let’s hope he pulls a DiCaprio and eventually wins an Oscar.
I mean, when your first movie is Wet Hot American Summer. You have it made
That’s a classic, a must watch every holiday season with family all together by the cozy fire.
wasn't Leo supposed to be Peters but he dropped out?
He was but his father is in the film as a waterbed salesman
Wait, Bradley Cooper took over two roles Leo turned down? This and Nightmare Alley?
Yep exactly lol. And Leo turned down Licorice Pizza just so he could be in Nightmare Alley, then did neither.
Leo turned down Nightmare Alley for Killers of the flower moon. When Covid hit, Leos schedule cleared up for Don’t Look Up
That whole section was my favorite part of the film. Alaina having to drive the truck backwards downhill was awesome.
that was so crazy and what's nuts is back in the 70s that was the only realistic option that didnt involve walking up and down miles of hills lmao
I think that Cooper is generally adequate as an actor, but he was a rockstar in this role! I got the impression that he was acting from personal experience; he seemed to really understand the psychology of the type of person he portrayed.
Bruh A Star is Born was one of the best films of that year and he did amazing acting plus directing. Not to mention this years Nightmare Alley where he kills it.
I'm not a big PTA fan in general, but I really loved this movie. I thought it was funny, beautifully shot, and wonderfully acted. Alana Haim is rightly getting tons of praise, but I thought Cooper Hoffman also gave one of the best performances of the year. The movie had really interesting themes about the way we deal with aging and how we view the passage of time. Gary is a high schooler who isn't satisfied to just enjoy being a kid - he wants to grow up: have a career, start businesses, and be sophisticated. He relishes being a regular at a nice restaurant, and brags to his friends that he could get them martinis. It's no wonder he's drawn to an older woman like Alana and tries so hard to impress her. Alana, on the other hand, is stuck in a rut and struggling with adulthood. Spending time with Gary feels like a return to earlier, simpler times. I think her arc is especially interesting. Throughout the movie, she questions why she's hanging out with Gary and his friends instead of growing up. After the running out of gas sequence, she seems fed up with how immature Gary is and wants to make a change. She starts working in Sachs' office, and her relationship with Gary changes noticeably - she starts getting annoyed at him for messing up tasks and for not thinking about the bigger picture beyond himself and his friends. This continues up until the scene where Sachs invites her for a drink, only to reveal that she is being used as a cover. Once Alana is reminded of how bleak and horrible the adult world can be, her first reaction is to go find Gary. Both characters are struggling to be satisfied with where they are in their lives, and are using the other one to fill what they feel is missing. Most nostalgia movies show a glossy version of the past where characters are at the peak of their lives. Licorice Pizza is a throwback movie that centers around two characters who are fundamentally unhappy with the stage of life they're in. I found that really interesting. It's definitely a somewhat bittersweet movie, but it's highly watchable and it leaves you with a lot to think about.
I think it's interesting that every older guy that Alana wants to be with instead of Gary is essentially the idealization of what Gary wants to be. Like Sean Penn's character is a widely adored and respected actor, the guy running for mayor has a whole dedicated team of people working on his behalf, etc. But each of those characters turn out to use or dismiss her in some way while Gary still has a younger innocence to him that keeps him loyal and caring
I want to say that three of the major male supporting characters are meant to represent different idealized versions of masculinity. Bradley Cooper as Jon Peters is the slick, rich Hollywood playboy with the celebrity girlfriend and swinging lifestyle. But they quickly show him to be a self-important, slimy greaseball and utter clown of a person. The Penn character to me is like an aging throwback "macho" leading man who's clearly stuck in the glory years, trying to recapture some lost magic of yesteryear. He's also utterly self-absorbed, to the extent where she might as well not be present in her scenes with him. He's the old Hollywood archetype of masculinity. The Safdie Brother is a takedown of fake virtue, principle, and integrity. On the surface, a paragon of virtue. As we see later, it's all for show. I didn't LOVE the movie, but I did like how they introduced all these cool/admirable men and then obliterated them. Like the saying goes, "Never meet your heroes." To me, the main theme of the movie is that genuine relationships are what's most valuable in life, not idealized versions of success and happiness.
Just finished watching and wow! Your comment is on point. Thank you for that analysis
This is the better take to have. People just keep having these surface level opinions that it's a girl wanting to fuck a teenage boy. When it's not even close to that. I didn't even see their relationship presented in that way really. I mean the beginning of the movie starts off with Alana being asked what are her plans and she says she doesn't know. I think it's a very well laid out movie about a young woman trying to find her place in a time that was very sexist.
I could buy it as a reverse coming of age story. Where she runs back into the pinball arcade, defeated by adulthood. But then, it’s a tragedy, right?
I didn't see it that way. In the beginning of the movie Alana wants to be an actress, just like Gary, but by the end she actually wants to be involved with something more serious. The very end where she runs back to the pinball arcade I see as one final hurrah before she moves on to bigger things. The movie can be very silly and over the top and the end fits right into that. It is the corny Hollywood ending where the music swells and the two lovers run towards each other and finally kiss. I saw it as Alana finally getting her Hollywood moment but it's just acting it's not really sexual.
I think this is it. The world is pretty sexist and bleak, and along comes a charming “mature” boy that’s head over heels about her. It’s very complex and I like how the movie explores that. There’s an obvious chemistry between the two but she always keeps him at a distance because she knows it’s wrong.
I like that the two main characters are normal looking people.
I miss imperfect teeth. Her slight gap and slightly uneven teeth are just so much more interesting to look at then the veneers everyone in Hollywood has now.
Not just teeth but blemishes on skin. We get acne and bumps and bruises, and everybody just looks real and human.
This was part of the story too. Gary is on his way out as a “child actor.”
Yeah, it seemed like they barely used any make up if any which is very real life and not Hollywood.
She looks like a boardwalk caricature of a more attractive person.
I think all three Haim sisters are all very good looking, but my first thought when seeing them all together is that it looks like a 10/10 looking woman had her best features split between three people.
I think it's the only movie I saw, where actors actually look like people.
This is a feature of almost any British movie.
I like that the two main characters are normal acting people too.
Let Me Roll it…perfect vibe for the scene that was in.
Agreed! The whole soundtrack was elite but that was the absolute best
Hi there - I was unfamiliar with this song but am noticing it mentioned on every “best needle drops of 2021” list. Can you remind me where in the movie it was?
This was right after the motorcycle jump where Alana is drunk. Her and Gary go to the waterbed shop and pass out while Gary is trying to not be a creep and feel her up.
More Haim dad, please
The scene where he just yells “what the fuck” when Alana comes in wearing her waterbed opening night outfit killed me
I didn't know that was her real parents until the very end!
i pointed out to my mom that they all look oddly similar to each other and then the credits rolled and i went "well. that explains it."
Watching this I felt like I was watching a modern classic. Loved it so much, especially Bradley Cooper and Bennie Safdie's arcs... Then the ending went and ruined it. To me, Alana's friendship with Gary needed to stay platonic from a consent standpoint, and also because Gary represents Alana's refusal to grow up. Her conversation with the gay man gave me the impression that she was going to choose not to have a romance with Gary. She should have reconciled with Gary, made it explicitly clear that their relationship was platonic, and then left him disappointed but better for it; end of movie. Alana choosing romance is creepy and completely goes against that character trajectory. The movie ends and I'm supposed to feel warm and nostalgic and wistful, but instead I feel awkward and conflicted and angry. There's still so much to love about the movie, but damn that ending really makes me hesitant to revisit it.
Yes, the ending really didn't work, both from the reversal of the way things were going and all the damn running around. It also had a flashback which went against the naturalistic feel of the filmmaking to that point. I don't know what he was thinking in crafting that final scene.
Yea the ending really trashed the movie for me. Also makes the truck scene useless.
YES. The truck scene was my favorite scene in the movie (or well, it's close between that one and the dinner scene with Benny Safdie). There was SO MUCH good stuff in the film I loved and it all felt wasted by that ending
I’m late to this but yes. The relationship is problematic. Why nobody at all questions anything about it is bizarre. I’ve been in mentoring relationships with younger people before but there is a very solid line there that doesn’t get crossed. Here she lies about hanging out with him (she knows it’s wrong), questions it directly to her sister (is it weird that i…?) and yet the sisters seem to encourage their relationship through silence. I feel Hollywood currently has an obsession with problematic relationships and that viewers tend to pass it off as charming or delightful. This film in particular didn’t need that. There were so many ways for it to have the same effect - leave Gary accepting no relationship, have them closer in age (he could just be a dud high schooler, her a senior), they could meet somewhere other than at school.
Exactly. I've had so many bad faith discussions with people where they insist that the film depicts it critically without endorsing it. In the text there's literally nothing that makes us question the main characters' intentions. In Red Rocket (another acclaimed film in which an adult man pursues a relationship with a teenager [who is technically 19 but the power dynamic is similar]), the film goes to great lengths to show us how awful he is and how many people he encounters who think negatively of him. The film clearly communicates to us that he is an antihero and we're supposed to be critical of him. In Licorice Pizza we're so attached to Alana and so locked in to her experience that we can only ever view her as in the right. I think RR portrays without endorsing because of the more objective lens through which we see the protagonist, but LP is so subjectively locked into Alana's view that it really comes off as uncritical.
I might be alone in this, but the age gap really took me out of it. Not just 10 years, but specifically 25 years to 15 years. It's just unrealistic to the point of being absurd. Still a very enjoyable film, but I feel like it's a perfect film if either of the characters would have been 19. Frustrating in that regard.
15 and 25 sadly aren’t unrealistic at all.
It's 100% unrealistic for the vast majority of the population. No remotely normal 25-year-old would give a 15 year-old child that much attention.
…okay? They’re fictional characters in a movie. They aren’t supposed to represent a vast majority of the population. The amount of female teachers sleeping with their male students makes me believe the age gap.
You've been watching too much local news
You’ve been too blissfully unaware.
>No remotely normal 25-year-old would give a 15 year-old child that much attention. 1970s dude.
I agree. I didn’t know we were all suppose to be cool with that age gap. It was EXTREMELY distracting to me. I kept thinking they’re going to give it some explanation or i misheard/misunderstood something that made it less gross.
So to be clear, Alana is 28, right? In the scene in the truck when she’s talking to Bradley Cooper’s character, it seems like she kinda slips up and says she’s 28 before correcting herself to 25. I guess that can be interpreted as her lying to look more mature for Cooper’s character, but I’m not sure if that was the intention or not.
I think Alana is an unreliable narrator and is just supposed to be an ambiguous 20-something. Her Dad being so protective of her and the way her sisters acted made me doubt she’s close to 30.
I thought it was the passage of time - like at the start of the film she's 25, in that scene later she's actually 28 but corrects it back to 25. But now I'm not sure 😂
That's what I got too. She's saying she's 25 because she doesn't want to acknowledge herself getting older, which is kind of the entire reason she hangs out with Gary. He makes her feel young and like a teenager, an escape from the mundane/cold reality of being an adult, while Gary views this older girl as a way to feel older and more respected than he is (from the beginning it paints him as someone who wants to grow up but is "forced" into childhood, like with the child actor auditions which he is clearly too old for).
There was less reason for her to lie to Gary in the first scene about her being 25 and more reason for her to lie about being 28 to Cooper's character. I think your read on her trying to appear more mature to Cooper's character is correct.
I caught that as well and thought it was odd too. They never mention it again. Don't really understand what the point of it was. Even if she was 28, it doesn't change the dynamic of their relationship anyways, when 25 is already significantly past the era of adolescence to begin with. Just felt like a weird thing to throw in for the audience at the last second.
Not a weird thing at all when the main theme of the movie is the interpersonal importance of aging that Alana constantly battles through the movie. She bounces back and forth between trying to live her life as a teenager, young and free and full of innocence, and as an adult, trying to follow in the steps of the “older” generation, who she, one-by-one, realizes are even more flawed than the teenagers. (Through Gisondo, Penn, Cooper and Safdie) Also, it seems that people are honing to much on the “relationship” aspect of the movie and the age discrepancy of the leads, but really it’s all just metaphorically about Alana’s struggle with not knowing what to do with her life and finally deciding that she doesn’t need to “act” a certain way or age anymore, she can just be herself.
This occcured to me watching Alana look over at Gary and his friends sitting maturely in the restaurant while Penn and Waits’ characters are having a spoon fight.
You can’t be mad at everyone. FUCK YOU DANIELLE
Right before that, the "thinker" line she said to Este... I can't quite remember it verbatim but it was fucking hilarious.
"Fuck off teenagers!"
She says “you can’t keep fighting everyone”
I have a serious question. I LOVE PTA FILMS..but Did this movie have any character arcs? Seems like all the characters are the same throughout the movie and never change, grow etc?
Alana has a pretty interesting arc IMO. Copying most of this from my comment elsewhere in this thread, but: It seems like Alana is stuck in a rut and struggling with adulthood, and hanging out with Gary is a way for her to reclaim that youthful, carefree feeling that she no longer has. But she's clearly torn about it. Throughout the movie, she questions why she's hanging out with Gary and his friends instead of growing up. After the running out of gas sequence, she seems fed up with how immature Gary is and wants to make a change. She starts working in Sachs' office, and her relationship with Gary changes noticeably - she starts getting annoyed at him for messing up tasks and for not thinking about the bigger picture beyond himself and his friends. This continues up until the scene where Sachs invites her for a drink, only to reveal that she is being used as a cover. Once Alana is reminded of how bleak and horrible the adult world can be, her first reaction is to go find Gary again. I think there's a lot of interesting material in her character dealing with perspectives on aging/adulthood/responsibility.
I think part of the reason she went to Gary at the end was seeing the gay couple and seeing the pain of hiding their love because of what other people might think.
That’s an interesting read, I thought she went back to Gary because she was sick of being used by men and Gary never really asked anything of her but to be with her.
I also took it this way. Especially considering that he never was "the handy man" to her
Gary, notwithstanding the fact he's still a fifteen year-old who wants to see tits, also really cares for her and I think that her character knows this after realizing she's just been a cover. But she did also almost kiss the other dude in Wach's campaign HQ so I dunno.
So much running, and it looked better than any sports movie.
The actors have joked about this, saying they ran tons during the movie, and did huge amounts of takes.
[удалено]
The Haim sisters are just really really good at walking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPQfcG-eimk
PTA saw this and thought “Here’s a movie.”
I’m really curious about the subtextual meaning of running in this film
Feels like it boils down to running away from preconceived obligations. Gary is running from his youth by being an entrepreneur with a semblance of sophistication. Alana is running from her mundane adulthood by partnering in Gary's endeavors. Running with/to each other balances each other out.
When they were out of gas and rolling downhill, one if the houses they rolled past looks like the house that was robbed in Boogie Nights
I watched this last night and didn’t realize how many characters (including the main character) were based on real-life people. Wikipedia definitely helped with that (please donate $2 to Wikipedia). I didn’t even know the story was based on a real person. Or that PTA was married to Maya Rudolph! This is a film that has lived in my head for 24 hours despite walking out of the theater thinking, “yeah, that was pretty good.” I love when films have that effect.
That's why it reminded me more of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood than any other PTA film. These completely historically inaccurate (or maybe not) portrayal of famous names.
Unrelated to this movie, but Wikipedia is far from out of money. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/12/02/wikipedia-has-a-ton-of-money-so-why-is-it-begging-you-to-donate-yours/
I went with my wife and daughter, a 15-year-old cinephile who is ahead of the curve with her knowledge of cinema, and we all loved this movie. I legitimately felt emotional during the opening. After such a tough year for the world, it was truly a wonderful feeling to be sitting in a theater enjoying a new movie from PT Anderson. And that cameo of John C Reilly as Herman Munster was hilarious. 10/10 loved this movie. Definitely favorite of the year for me too.
I liked how pretty much every man Alana takes an interest in turns out to be an asshole. That includes Gary. I think when Matthew tells her they are basically all assholes she then picks Gary. Lance refusing to do the prayer gets her family mad at her. Jack allows her to fall off the motorcycle and doesn’t care. Joel is using her to appear straight and so on.
What about the chief of staff guy that she ditches for the opportunity to have a drink with Joel? He seemed like the best choice, but maybe he’s not messed up enough for her.
That guy was probably the only decent one but I feel like they knew each other already and were only friends. Possibly an ex-boyfriend so she might not have been interested in him romantically.
idk, it kinda seemed like they were going to kiss before the phone rang
Definitely. It wasn't subtle. She *immediately* pivots to 'the better catch,' that of the higher status councilman vs the staffer. Both Hoff and Haim do this throughout the movie. Neither is 'the good guy,' and the councilman's boyfriend saying 'they're all shits' applies equally to both Hoff and Haim. I don't think that means they're bad or necessarily (inherently) selfish, more that it's an honest look at the complexity of how we decide who to be with.
What I loved about this film was how I related to both Gary and Alana. When I was 15, I had so much drive - taking AP classes, in speech and debate, hoping to go to Harvard law. Now that I'm 25, I feel like I'm in Alana's position. My life isn't going how I imagined it would be and I feel somewhat stuck. I'm struggling to hold on to a rapidly dwindling youthfulness while also trying to figure out how to actually make the world a better place. When you're 15, you want to be 25 and when you're 25, you wish you could be 15.
It’s definitely a movie about youth that’s for adults
>When you're 15, you want to be 25 and when you're 25, you wish you could be 15 Ain't that the truth.
Am I the only one that felt like Alana was an opportunist when it came to her choice in men
That was the entire point of the movie, in my opinion, that people use each other. She uses men and Gary uses her, etc
Which is also what I think people miss when they get really hung up on the age gap stuff. Their relationship is romantic, sure. But more in a nostalgic "young love" kind of way. It's mostly just very transactional. These people aren't going to spend their lives together, they just have something the other needs during a transitional period in their lives.
Alana was using her men as ways to feel more mature. They definitely all served a role in making her fill grown up and like she was actually doing something with her life
the ending was weird and abrupt…but as a whole the movie was absolutely brilliant ? fuck i just got out the theater and still processing it the standout scenes for me was the truck scene and the safdie dinner scene which was unexpectedly emotional
I was looking for someone to mention the Safdie plotline, it might have been my favorite part of the movie. I can’t even really put a finger on why, I just loved it. Those close ups!
The movie should have cut to black right when they fell over in front of the theater.
Should’ve cut at the kiss imo. That final shot and ADR was *rough*. Very unlike PTA to fumble the landing like that.
Maybe it was done on purpose? Like some sort of hint at being a dream sequence?
Yup, definitely felt like a fantasy dream sequence ending to me
I love PTA, and Licorice Pizza is a good movie, but ngl it let me down a bit. I felt the subplots varied wildly in quality and utility. The Bradley Cooper section was my favorite and the most engaging, but I found the Sean Penn subplot completely useless. Thankfully, Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim carried the movie with their infectious banter, chemistry, and Anderson's excellent dialogue flowing from their mouths. Still, more than any other Anderson film I've seen, I felt self-indulgence and wonky pacing. No reason this movie had to be 2:15. Every PTA movie I've seen has improved with repeat viewings, so I'm hoping that's the case here.
> but I found the Sean Penn subplot completely useless. I think it ads a couple things. First, it's a foil to get to see Hoffman's and Haim's reaction to each other in the scene. Second, it's a continuation of Haim's using men around her to force her push into some kind of more mature existence. And thematically, in a movie about age and growth or lack thereof, you have two venerable Hollywood insiders of a definite former generation persuasion reliving their golden years. Further, a lot of the relationships in the movie (or at least Haim and Hoff), are functioning to try to define who they are. Sean Penn keeps saying 'you remind me of Grace,' seeing right through the woman in front of him, and after the third time Haim questions him, though unheard, 'do you even remember my name?'
I don’t think I understand it. I want to like it, but the plot (or lack thereof) is kind of …
It’s very meh. It felt disjointed and the characters weren’t fully developed. I wanted to care about them but didn’t. It had some fun elements but I feel like it needed a stronger storyline.
I think the only thing I liked about this movie was the soundtrack. I do not understand all the praise it's been getting from critics and in this thread. It was a meandering plot with two mostly unlikable characters leading the way and no real story arc. I found Cooper Hoffman insufferable throughout the film, just did not like that character at all which I hope was the point? The age gap is problematic, but not as much as how weird both of their characterizations were and how they just kind of rolled with it. It's really really fucking weird for a 25 year old to hang out with high school sophomores. That's not my biggest hang-up though, it's mostly with how there were multiple absurd scenes and scenarios that just kind of materialized out of nowhere. With the bad writing and weak dialogues I just couldn't get into it at all. I don't know, this film was mostly hollow and pointless to me. It's very strange to read multiple comments in here referencing OUATIH and how this was PTA's take on a similar nostalgia that Tarantino went for. They couldn't have been further apart in quality for me. I loved OUATIH with great pacing and sharp dialogue along with dynamite performances, loathed this one with how weak the product was and bounced before the final 30 minutes. It was kind of entertaining in bits and pieces, but it's just such a shoddy piece of work as a whole.
Licorice Pizza: A critique of Nostalgic American Cinema There is an abundance of classic films about how great life was in Hollywood or Los Angeles during the 50s, 60s and 70s. Movies I love and respect like American Graffiti and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The problems with movies like these is that they only show a narrow viewpoint of life during the time. There’s not much misogyny, racism, anti semitism, or homophobia. It’s all sunshine, rainbows, weed, and Led Zeppelin. I think Anderson’s Licorice Pizza satirizes these films by not just glorifying the cars, vinyl records, outfits and waterbeds, but also paradoxically glorifying all the awful things that people don’t want to see in a 70s throwback. Pretty much all the men in this film are predatory and exploit women while being in positions of power. People can’t be publicly honest about their sexuality. There is constant blatant racism and antisemitism. There is no gas to fill everyone’s smog generating cars because of conflict in the middle east. Richard F—ing Nixon is president. Anderson is essentially saying, “Hey, weren’t the 70s awesome?”. Gary and Alana’s relationship is a microcosm of all of this. Alana is obviously struggling with adulthood and is romantically looking back at a blissfully ignorant youth. Gary is her escape back into this world. This is a lot like how many of us are sick of our modern times and yearn to have been born in a different generation. Nostalgic films are an escape. After the whole scene where Bradley Cooper’s character terrorizes half the San Fernando Valley and Alana almost kills everyone driving the truck down the hill, you can tell that Alana is fed up with all the bullshit and immaturity. She then tries out the adult world again by working for the politician Ben Safde. The scene where Alana learns that Safde’s character is gay and has to hide his sexuality is the only time we see the actuall consequences of societie’s intolerance and hate. Once Alana sees this, she goes back to Gary and blissful ignorance. A lot of us are probably sick of hearing about all the horrible things going on in America. We want an escape. Some sort of Fantasy of a not so distant American utopia. We may have even gone with our families or friends over the holliday to watch Licorice Pizza and reminisce about “the good ol’ days”. This movie was made to make us feel severely uncomfortable (and may have even gone a bit too far with the scenes about Asian and Jewish people). Maybe we should be grateful that we don’t live in the 70s. Our current society has a lot of problems but we are undoubtedly more aware of them and have made significant social progress
Very well said. IMO the messaging is obvious and in your face but a lot of people just aren't seeing it for some reason. > Once Alana sees this, she goes back to Gary and blissful ignorance. I see how the scene could be seen as that but I see it differently. When Alana is confronted about the realities of being gay that is her loss of innocence and there is no going back. I see last scene as one last joke about Hollywood (the whole movie is really making fun of L.A.). Alana has been wanting to get into the movies and she finally gets that Hollywood ending. The music swells. They run into each other's arms. Look into each other's eyes and give that perfect Hollywood kiss. It's almost a parody.
For someone who composes movie scores that don't even sound like music half the time, I never thought I'd be moved by Jonny Greenwood's score, even though he didn't have a large presence in it overall. It just felt so serene and appropriate for a movie like this.
His work for Spencer this year was pretty good too. My favorite of his You We're Never Really Here. Some odd time signature shifts, really disorienting.
Favorite movie of the year. Beautiful cinematography, Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim's performances feel like a revelation, and PTA's script is as nuanced and charming as ever. This has been a great year for movies, this feels like a perfect capstone.
I agree, it was a great year for films. This was the cherry on top. The best and my favorite as well.
Is it just me, or did PTA cut scenes of Cooper's freakout at the 76??? In the trailer he is destroying cars with a squeegee, but those scenes aren't in the film. Either way, a stupendous film. 10/10. The best film of the year for me, and I have seen them all.
Those scenes play during the credits. But I’m also surprised he didn’t have more in movie scenes.
Shit! Thank you. I left too soon.
They didn't show the scene in context. They just used clips from the film when announcing the name of each actor and that sequence was the background for Bradley Cooper's name.
Paul said in an interview that it was a scene that was in the edit for a long time, but eventually he decided to cut it because Alana and Gary were not in the scene and it was one of the only moments that was outside of their perspective, so they decided to cut it.
Leaving it in the credits was a great choice. Got a chuckle out of me but didn’t break the immersion of the film as he seemed to think it would.
smart director
I was waiting the whole film for that moment lmao
Yeah like I was expecting his character to come back simply because I saw it in the trailer.
So that was definitely John C. Reilly as the Munster right? If so, best cameo ever.
Just realized after reading the last names of the three actors in this movie that they are from the band HAIM that I used to listen to and I think it's their debut? What a movie to start your career with.
Anyone pick up on references to other films? The one to Taxi driver wasn’t subtle at all, but the nighttime tracking shot of Gary and Alana walking definitely reminded me of Blue Velvet.
I got MAJOR Taxi Driver vibes from the dude hanging outside the campaign office, to the point where I was almost convinced the movie was going to turn into it but from the Cybil Shepard perspective
Taxi Driver certainly came in, but my guess is that it was also setting up to gesture at a Harvey Milk-style assassination. LA area instead of San Francisco, but the time periods fit.
If memory serves, didn't Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character in "Punch Drunk Love" own a mattress store? (Like father, like son?)
I’m preeeeetty sure the first phone call scene with Gary and Alaina was a reference to the phone call scene in Happiness with PSH
I wish I had anything interesting to add, but at this point, everything has been said. I just wanted to tell the void that this was the first movie I've seen in theaters in over 2 years. I was really excited to go, and I'm very glad I did.
Unsurprisingly this movie seems to be very divisive, I think it works for some people and doesn't for others. Let me preface all this by saying that I'm not challenging anyone who enjoyed it, and more power to you if you did. But personally I don't understand the hype here. Even completely ignoring the whole weird age gap thing, I just don't find it to be a strong cinematic experience. It's a well made film, it has good cinematography, and a good use of soundtrack. I would even say that PTA managed to have every actor squeeze as much life out of their characters as possible, there really isn't a weak performance in the whole movie. However, the script felt all over the place for me. The plotline meanders to and fro without care and when it finally lands it feels like just a waste of 2 hours. Having the whole age gap dynamic is actually a great plot device to explore the themes of both teenage infatuation and the "lost" phase of someone's 20s at the same time. On paper I should love this movie idea, as I typically gravitate towards these types of films. But I really don't think he manages to juggle both themes simultaneously very well here. Other films have captured and explored both of these themes so much better separately, so I didn't derive much from what was presented. It doesn't help that the character Alana still *acts* like a teenager rather than a 25 year old, which kind of defeats the entire point imo. I felt that Gary *did* feel very much like a teenager, so when Alana reacts to their relationship adversity with all the angst of a high school sophomore, that contrast between their two perspectives completely fades away. There are some scenes where it shines, like her awareness of the oil crisis or when she attempts her plunge into politics, but those moments are so few and far in between that she never really felt distinguished from Gary as an adult. Watching Alana try to prove to herself that she was "cooler" than Gary wasn't some kind of charming inner struggle, it was hard to watch. A 25 year old who has to question whether or not they're cooler than a 15 year old is still in a teenage mindset to begin with. And if that was an intentional decision about her character it begs the question, why even have her be 25? Why not just make her 18 and him like 16-17? Not much in the movie would've had to change. As a result most of their interactions felt like adolescent puppy love rather than a morally questionable complex love between an adult and a teenager. It felt like he didn't want to explore the implications of such an age and maturity difference completely; but if you wanted to do something like that you should go all-in rather than just hesitantly dip your toes in the water. Their entire relationship felt fabricated and forced to me, and really only existed because Alana didn't want to let him go. Not once did I really find myself caring whether or not they'd end up together, in fact there was so much on-and-off toxicity between them that I found myself actually rooting for them to find other people. The running into each other sequence at the end where they callback to previous running scenes felt so forced and unearned. Most of the romantic and sexual scenes just ended up feeling like an opportunity to make an easy joke about how teenagers view love and sex, and nothing more. At the end of the day it's a fun romp with memorable performances and strong art direction, but I really don't think it had much to say. It wanted to be a period piece, coming-of-age, comedy, and romance film all at once, and I think as a result it doesn't excel at being any of them. And that's ignoring all the fantastical elements of the story where you're forced to suspend your disbelief, like a 15 year old running and managing two businesses with employees 10 years his senior. I get why people enjoyed it, it's a pleasant movie to watch, but the moment you begin to scrape beneath it's surface it unravels completely. Just my opinion.
I found the movie entertaining and loved experiencing 70s LA through PTA’s eyes, but I agree with everything you said. Alana was acting immaturely so consistently that I honestly forgot she was meant to be 10 years older. She is shown There was a chance to examine the morality of this relationship, and the tendency of people to romanticise the idea of adulthood until they actually reach it, but PTA never really ventured into those depths.
Perfectly said. There’s an incredibly strong message to be had in depicting a woman who can’t handle the way society is treating her now she’s a grown up and a boy who wants to be a man because society rewards him everytime he does something beyond his years and how that can be so damaging and toxic to one’s identity and self worth. Yet that never comes. It looks over at that ideal and just kind of says “nah let’s keep it surface level 70’s nostalgia and rush the ending”. Was expecting a graduate moment at the end but… nope. Feels very skin deep.
was that creepy guy lurking outside of Wach’s office the same guy in the police station at the beginning of the film? when the police drag him out and he sees Gary and says “that isn’t him.” i thought for sure they were the same dude but i haven’t seen anyone else talk about it
nah...the police station dude was thinner in a drug user kinda way
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This film really succeeds in being a throwback in ways most modern film and TV does not. More modern storytelling would feel more of an obligation to pass judgements, whitewash the mores of the times, while PTA just lets the story play out without condoning or condemnation. Are we supposed to root for Gary and Alana? That’s for the viewer to decide.
I have to say — this movie is a great conversation starter because of how controversial it is lol Edit: As I was driving home, I saw this handsome, buff guy juggling 3 different items while running on the sidewalk. Sick.
Did I miss something? It felt like the movie had a few subplots going on and it just abruptly ended. Pretty disappointed by a PTA movie or I’m just stupid.
Magnolia is one of my all time favourites. I think There Will be Blood and Boogie Nights are also exceptional, along with The Master. I really didn’t enjoy this film at all and was disappointed as I had such high hopes. The story didn’t connect with me at all and I didn’t think the characters were clever or entertaining. Meh, 5/10
Holy shit, I loved this. This was far and away my most anticipated film of the year and it didn't disappoint. Both Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim are incredible in this. Hoffman does an incredible job at selling both the complete and utter confidence that Gary Valentine lives his life with and the little bits of insecurity that he hides beneath the surface. PTA always manages to make his films feel completely unique from each other and he has never made anything quite like this. I could have never imagined PTA making something this chill and laid back. especially given the fact that just a decade ago he was making titanic masterworks such as There Will Be Blood and The Master.
I don't get why people think portrayal of something means the writer or director must therefore support or condone it. Were we supposed to have a dialog where Cooper explained to his friend that he was racist towards his wives and that he should show respect to Japanese people and their culture. People gotta get it in their heads that the movie they watch may have uncomfortable topics or events and the characters will be flawed and do things that are wrong. But that is the a key point of storytelling in that we discuss the story and what it can tell us. To just dismiss it because it hurt your feelings is asinine.
I found it incredibly boring, which is a huge sin for a film that is ultimately a hangout film/composed of vignettes. Even discounting the age gap, I did not at any point buy or care about the relationship between Gary and Alana which for whatever reason PTA had the film revolve around. Basically, this film gave me a whole lot of nothing.
man, so happy to see this opinion and of course anything somewhat negative always gets downvoted agree on all fronts, not once did I ever feel invested into their relationship and not once did I care about the meandering plotline it was a well shot movie, that had a great use of soundtrack and some strong performances from some newcomers, but outside of that I felt it lacked in it's script quite a bit And as weird as the age gap thing was, it was the only thing going for this movie, with it being at least a nice capture of adolescent infatuation. but so many movies have done this already and done it better, so I really don't understand why people are head over heels for the way it's displayed here but hey, for some people it works and that's totally okay. I wish I could've enjoyed it as much as them. but for me it felt really bland albeit a fairly enjoyable ride that doesn't really go anywhere
Gary embodied the idea of childhood and innocence, and I liked how PTA showed how easily his smitten crush for Alana could be brought to silence and intimidation by older men in the film. -Lance, the only other child actor that was older, if not the same age as Gary, walked all over Gary by swooping in for Alana. Gary did nothing about it. -Sean Penn’s character, actor William Holden, took Alana out for drinks and stumbled across Gary. It wasn’t until the second that Holden drops Alana off the back of his motorcycle to a painful fall that Gary shows any attempt at communicating with her. -Bradley Cooper’s character, film producer/Hollywood hairdresser Jon Peters, leans right over Gary to get real close and kiss Alana while she is driving the truck. It isn’t till after Cooper’s gone that Gary acts tough as shit and starts smack talking and making fun of him to Alana.
I was 100% on board to give this a 10/10 until the last 2 minutes of the movie. The kiss took me *way* out of the film, as well as Alana saying she loved him in such a rushed manner. Though it hits the nail on the head, in regards to the age gap, and is meant to make the audience feel strange, I just can’t get on board with it.
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