You can almost always count on P. T. Anderson. He's got another winner with Licorice Pizza.
It's kind of insane that this is the first real acting role for both leads Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman (who through the entire movie I was thinking - he's kind of like a young Philip Seymour Hoffman, I wonder if that's why Paul cast him... then the end credits rolled and I realized it was his actual son). They both carry the entire movie with flying colors. The dynamic between them as actors is undeniable and the dynamic between their characters is an entirely separate feat. I can't think of any other movies where a 15 year old boy pursues a 25 year old woman, and everything that occurs between them feels so...natural. Hoffman has the chops to sculpt a fully believable and relatively complex character, while Haim is simply hilarious, realistic, and intensely crushable.
The film is also a very effective time warp. It truly feels like old world California - far more than Once Upon A Time In Hollywood did, in my opinion. It feels way more genuine - it's really impressive it was made in the last year or two.
There's a lot of great small roles and cameos as is sort of expected with many Anderson movies. Most notably, John C. Reilly appears for only ONE line of dialogue, as the camera pans past him, BUT, it's one of the most hilarious cameos I can recall, especially looking back on it. To me, it's really impressive how Anderson always seems to come up with the most oddball concepts and scenarios - his movies always have similarities but they're also so different from one another, and so different from what everyone else is making.
To me, the film's only real flaw was that it loses a bit of it's pacing in the final act and finally starts to feel like it's dragging a bit in the last half hour. It just feels like it meanders a bit. No real conflict - just floating a bit. Also, debatably, it doesn't have much of an "ending", but, the way it ends still satisfies just enough. It's subtle and charming enough.
Speaking of charming, this is probably Paul Thomas Anderson's most charming movie overall, and his sweetest. Tone wise, it's closer to Punch-Drunk Love than any of his other movies - it's definitely romantic. It's really just a majorly enjoyable and mostly calming delve into young love in the old world (with a slight element of abnormality). This would be a great date movie, to be honest. I hope Alana Haim gets nominated for an Oscar. See it.
It's kind of insane that this is the first real acting role for both leads Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman (who through the entire movie I was thinking - he's kind of like a young Philip Seymour Hoffman, I wonder if that's why Paul cast him... then the end credits rolled and I realized it was his actual son). They both carry the entire movie with flying colors. The dynamic between them as actors is undeniable and the dynamic between their characters is an entirely separate feat. I can't think of any other movies where a 15 year old boy pursues a 25 year old woman, and everything that occurs between them feels so...natural. Hoffman has the chops to sculpt a fully believable and relatively complex character, while Haim is simply hilarious, realistic, and intensely crushable.
The film is also a very effective time warp. It truly feels like old world California - far more than Once Upon A Time In Hollywood did, in my opinion. It feels way more genuine - it's really impressive it was made in the last year or two.
There's a lot of great small roles and cameos as is sort of expected with many Anderson movies. Most notably, John C. Reilly appears for only ONE line of dialogue, as the camera pans past him, BUT, it's one of the most hilarious cameos I can recall, especially looking back on it. To me, it's really impressive how Anderson always seems to come up with the most oddball concepts and scenarios - his movies always have similarities but they're also so different from one another, and so different from what everyone else is making.
To me, the film's only real flaw was that it loses a bit of it's pacing in the final act and finally starts to feel like it's dragging a bit in the last half hour. It just feels like it meanders a bit. No real conflict - just floating a bit. Also, debatably, it doesn't have much of an "ending", but, the way it ends still satisfies just enough. It's subtle and charming enough.
Speaking of charming, this is probably Paul Thomas Anderson's most charming movie overall, and his sweetest. Tone wise, it's closer to Punch-Drunk Love than any of his other movies - it's definitely romantic. It's really just a majorly enjoyable and mostly calming delve into young love in the old world (with a slight element of abnormality). This would be a great date movie, to be honest. I hope Alana Haim gets nominated for an Oscar. See it.