Licorice Pizza

I have had the movie Licorice Pizza on my list for quite some time but, after all of the negative discourse about the age gap between the main characters and the use of racial stereotypes, I became ambivalent about it.  I eventually decided to see it last night and I ended up liking it more than I thought I would.  It is 1973 in the San Fernando Valley and fifteen year old Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman), a former child actor turned entrepreneur, is having his picture taken for the yearbook at school when he notices Alana Kane (Alana Haim), the photographer's assistant who is 25.  He is wise beyond his years, even employing his mother in one of his businesses, and she is still trying to figure life out while living at home with her parents and sisters (played by Haim's real-life family).  He asks her out to dinner and they begin a tumultuous friendship and have a series of misadventures as he starts a waterbed business and builds an arcade while she auditions for a movie role and works for a politician.  This is, essentially, a hang-out movie where not a lot happens but Haim and Cooper give incredibly charismatic and appealing (much more than I was expecting) performances so I was always invested in their fate. I also really enjoyed several hilarious cameos, particularly Sean Penn as Jack Holden, a middle aged actor who goes to great lengths to impress Alana, and Bradley Cooper as Jon Peters, Barbra Streisand's boyfriend who buys a waterbed from Gary.  The period costumes are fabulous (I was five years old in 1973 and I had a dress very similar to one Alana wears) and the soundtrack is very nostalgic (I especially loved "Let Me Roll It" by Paul McCartney and "Life on Mars" by David Bowie).  I didn't mind the age gap because the tone is so lighthearted and the romance mostly consists of an endless cycle of flirting and fighting.  I did, however, find the exaggerated Japanese accent to be quite cringe-worthy (and not really needed in the story).  I don't necessarily think this is worthy of a Best Picture nomination but I enjoyed it and would recommend it.