Licorice Pizza

There is a specific kind of kinetic energy that only Paul Thomas Anderson seems to capture—a restless, leg-shaking anxiety that feels like it’s being powered by a 1973 sun. While most directors were trying to figure out how to film through Plexiglass during the pandemic, PTA went back to the San Fernando Valley to film a bunch of teenagers selling waterbeds and running down Ventura Boulevard. I watched this while wearing a pair of itchy wool socks that I should have thrown away months ago, and somehow that tactile discomfort made the movie’s scratchy, 70s aesthetic feel even more immersive.

The Chemistry of Chaos

The heartbeat of Licorice Pizza isn’t a plot; it’s the friction between two people who probably shouldn’t be in the same room, let alone the same zip code. Alana Haim makes one of the most confident screen debuts I’ve seen in a decade. She plays Alana Kane, a 25-year-old photographer’s assistant who is stuck in that weird post-college purgatory where you’re too old to be a kid but too aimless to be an adult. Then she meets Gary Valentine, played by Cooper Hoffman.

Gary is 15, a child actor with the hustle of a 50-year-old used car salesman. He’s all bravado and acne. My hot take? The age gap isn't the point; the point is that 25 is the new 15 when you’re failing at life. The film doesn't ask you to approve of their "romance"—it asks you to remember what it felt like to be that age, when every person you met was a potential door to a new version of yourself. Hoffman, the son of the late, legendary Philip Seymour Hoffman, has his father's soulful eyes but a totally different, frantic swagger. Watching them together is like watching two live wires trying to find a ground.

Waterbeds and Warlords

The movie is episodic, flowing like a series of "you won’t believe what happened" stories told over a beer. One minute they’re starting a waterbed company, the next they’re navigating the 1973 oil crisis. The middle of the film features a sequence that is easily one of the best things PTA has ever shot: a truck, out of gas, rolling backward down a winding hill in total silence.

It’s during these detours that the heavy hitters show up to chew the scenery. Sean Penn pops in as a washed-up actor who cares more about his motorcycle stunts than his dates, and Tom Waits hovers nearby like a gravel-voiced ghost of Old Hollywood. But the show-stealer is Bradley Cooper as the real-life producer Jon Peters. He enters the film like a Category 5 hurricane of cocaine and toxic masculinity. Bradley Cooper should only play unhinged lunatics from now on. His performance is a terrifying, hilarious reminder of the "Great Man" era of Hollywood that the film is quietly dissecting.

Stuff You Didn't Notice

One of the reasons the film feels so lived-in is that PTA basically raided his own life and the lives of his friends for parts. Apparently, the entire Haim family in the movie—the sisters and the parents—is Alana’s actual family. The awkward Shabbat dinner scene? That’s genuine family tension. Even the title, Licorice Pizza, is a nod to a defunct Southern California record store chain that was the hub of Valley culture back then.

If you look closely at the background during the waterbed convention, you might spot Leonardo DiCaprio’s dad, George, who was a real-life underground comic book distributor; he has a cameo as the guy selling the "Soggy Bottom" beds. PTA also insisted on shooting with old "C Series" anamorphic lenses to get that specific 1970s flare and texture. In an era where every Marvel movie looks like it was scrubbed clean in a dishwasher, the grain and sweat of this film feel like a rebellious act. It’s a movie that smells like gas fumes and stale cigarettes.

A Modern Relic

In our current streaming-dominated world, where "content" is often designed to be background noise while you scroll through TikTok, Licorice Pizza demands you pay attention to the small stuff. It’s a contemporary film that rejects contemporary polish. There’s no de-aging CGI here, no virtual production volumes—just people running until they’re out of breath.

It’s a drama that understands that the most dramatic thing in the world is often just a girl realizing a boy is a jerk, or a boy realizing he’s in over his head. While some might find the lack of a traditional "ending" frustrating, I found it honest. Life in your twenties (or your teens) doesn't have a third-act climax; it just has more running.

Licorice Pizza is a sun-drenched fever dream that manages to be nostalgic without being sentimental. It’s a reminder that even in an era of franchise dominance, a director with a camera and a few talented friends can still capture lightning in a bottle. It's weird, it's messy, and it's the most fun I've had in a theater since the world tilted on its axis in 2020. Give it a watch, then go for a run. You'll feel the difference.