Licorice Pizza
Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Cooper Hoffman, Maya Rudolph, Christine Ebersole
Rating: 3.5/5

A story about growing up, falling in love, exploring life with enterprising fervour, this Paul Thomas Anderson film transports the viewer to 1970’s San Fernando valley where everything is so enrapturing that you’d be hard-pressed to come down to earth. This film derives its moniker from the Southern California record store chain that existed there and is a testament to Anderson’s gold-encrusted nostalgic memories of his own childhood spent in that valley.

Alana Kane and Gary Valentine played by Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman (son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) in their feature debuts, are the two main characters in this story that navigates around the treacherous pathways of first love. She’s 25 and he’s 15 going on 30, a sometime child actor and enterprising business hustler, and they first meet at his high school where she’s helping the photographers on picture day. It may seem like an odd coupling but Anderson establishes the two characters with such charming effusiveness that you just get more and more eager to know what happens next. Anderson’s narrative is so beguilingly unexpected that we get completely ensnared from the first opening moments to the last. The startling tonal shifts from silly humour to gentle romance, the unanticipated action, and the pitfalls of youthful zest are all handled with a magical, out-of-this-world verve that keeps you entirely hooked. I