You’re always thinking things, you thinker

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2022

#5 :  Licorice Pizza

70s-set romance from Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Cooper Hoffman as a former child actor who sets his sights on 10-years-older Alana Haim as he gets into the waterbed business.

Paul Thomas Anderson is an interesting one.  His acclaimed masterpiece (There Will Be Blood) is accepted as such by pretty much everyone - except for me.  It looked very fine, but seriously - what was the point to it all?  I also couldn't get into The Master, but apart from that I've pretty much enjoyed all of his films I've seen - Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love and Phantom Thread are all interesting and look fantastic.  I've heard this is good - I suspect I'd have got around to watching it at some point, but probably not as quickly as this if I'm being honest.

And what a peculiar film this is!  Gary Valentine (played by Cooper Hoffman) is a child actor who appears to be coming to the end of his career (at the tender age of fifteen) when he bumps into Alana Kane (played by Alana Haim) and he's quite smitten with her, so has to decide how to impress her.  So, quite obviously, he enters the waterbed business - isn't that what everyone does to impress a girl?  And, somewhat surprisingly, japes and romance result - but it's fair to say the course of true love does not run smooth.  In fact, I'd suggest it runs completely bizarre, often taking very random detours for no obvious reason.  It also weirdly uses characters from real life for no obvious reason - and basically that's all I'm going to tell you.

The acting style is a bit odd because it somehow manages to be natural and over the top at the same time - it's quite Tarantinoesque in that regard and several bits of this reminded me of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (the retro nature, acting content and use of real-life figures somewhat obviously invited the comparison).  Almost Famous was another film that came to mind and you get the impression this wanted to be just as charming, but unfortunately comes nowhere close.  The retro nature is very well here done - you really feel like you're in the 70s.  It's also a very summery film - there's a lot of skimpy outfits and camera flare going on.  

I don't blame the actors for the acting style in the slightest - I'm sure they were merely doing what they were told.  Cooper and Alana make a pleasant enough pair - not exactly drowning in chemistry but I don't get the impression it was supposed to be that kind of relationship.  They both do a pretty good job for major roles in their first films though and they're certainly watchable.  Cooper is the son of Phiip Seymour Hoffman and you can really see the resemblance when you're told that and Alana is one of HAIM (a popular music combo, in case you're not aware).  Also, somewhat bizarrely, Alana the character's family is played by Alana the actor's family - I don't think her dad should be expecting the phone to be ringing off the hook with offers.

No-one else really gets a chunky role to sink their teeth into, but a LOT of familiar faces pop up throughout the film.  It was nice to see Sean Penn - he doesn't do so much these days and whilst he's certainly an interesting character in real life, he's a fine actor (although he's a bit of dick here).  Bradley Cooper also pops up in a random role, playing a somewhat controversial real-life figure who was an executive producer on the latest version of A Star Is Born, directed by on Bradley Cooper.

I do have a couple of random quibbles.  Firstly, I found the ten year age gap a bit disconcerting because Cooper and Alana look physically to be a very similar age and, in terms of maturity, Gary is the one that has his life sorted out.  Although, unusually for film, the actors actually have a ten year age gap in real life (but obviously they're five years older than they're supposed to be).  Secondly, there's far too much running in this film for no obvious reason - maybe it's a metaphor for youth being in a hurry, but it's just annoying.

All in all, this film is an odd one - it's not terrible and it does have some plot, but there's an awful lot of nothingness or randomness in there and 133 minutes is far, far too long.  I think my main complaint is that I just didn't see the point to it - it was all perfectly pleasant but at no point did I care about any of it.  At time of writing it's available to rent in all the usual locations, but I'm not entirely sure why you'd bother. 

#6 - Unexpectedly charming
#4 - A film plenty of people should watch