Licorice Pizza: A heady cocktail, exquisitely crafted
In Licorice Pizza, Alana and Gary find themselves in the midst of a rather awkward friendship. It’s not a relationship because Alana makes it very clear that Gary is not her boyfriend. Gary is 15 years old, a former child actor, and an entrepreneur. Alana is 25 years old, aimless, insecure, and a little rough on the edges.
These are two people who are bound to be with each other but have a great barrier facing them.
What we see next is Gary and Alana hanging out together, doing business together, becoming a part of some fun, unconventional escapades.
The best way to describe the friendship between Alana and Gary is that they are always in-between. In between dates, jobs, businesses.
The film is set in Los Angeles in the 1970s. These characters belong to a specific time, in a time when romance or relationships were played out differently.
What helps the characters and the storytelling belong to a specific time in the past is also its cinematography. Director Paul Thomas Anderson and cinematographer Mike Bauman use lenses and film processing to degrade the image and achieve that texture.
The film finds itself in between genres and forms of storytelling. Spread across the film are some really fun cameos by Tom Waits, Sean Penn, Benny Safdie, Bradley Cooper, and Maya Rudolf. Many of the situations and characters in the film are based on real-life people and their experiences.
