Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson worked with the late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman on films from “Boogie Nights” to “Magnolia.” In “Licorice Pizza,” Anderson has cast Hoffman’s teenage son, Cooper Hoffman, opposite pop singer Alana Haim.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Encino, Calif.
Most of the kids ignore her, but one boy, Gary Valentine, starts chatting her up like he wants a date.
And they are both relatable and real, from his acne to her increasingly perplexed reaction to being drawn into his orbit, at first as a sort of chaperone, then as a partner in various business ventures, always with a bit of romantic tension between them…
The director is clearly having a field day mining showbiz history and the ’70s in general – gas lines, political chicanery, pinball arcades and a meandering plot that keeps its hero and heroine literally on the run much of the time, whether because Alana is saving Gary from a crisis or because Gary is torn between being a gentleman…
And anyway, “Licorice Pizza” is Alana’s journey of self-discovery, appropriately for a film that’s plucked its star from a rock group for which Anderson has made several music videos and that takes its title from a long-gone record store chain.
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