Licorice Pizza

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza follows Cooper Hoffman’s Gary and Alana Haim’s Alana as they encounter a whole host of oddball characters and situations during several particularly eventful weeks. Filmmaker Anderson, working from his own screenplay, delivers a perpetually lackadaisical endeavor that fares best in its subdued yet promising opening stretch, as Anderson has infused the early part of Licorice Pizza with an easy-going feel that proves fairly difficult to resist – with the compelling vibe heightened by Anderson and Michael Bauman’s striking visuals and the thoroughly appealing, charismatic efforts of stars Hoffman and Haim. It’s equally clear, however, that Anderson’s ongoing (and aggressive) decision to stress atmosphere over plot becomes more and more problematic as the picture slowly unfolds, with the ensuing absence of forward momentum compounded by a growing emphasis on asides and digressions that are hardly as engrossing or involving as Anderson has intended. (This is particularly true of an especially tiresome sequence detailing Alana’s encounter with Sean Penn’s aging movie star, with the ineffectiveness of this interlude essentially, and effectively, bringing the proceedings to a dead stop.) And although the final half hour boasts an urgency that’s otherwise (and disastrously) absent, Licorice Pizza has long-since cemented its place as a distressingly disappointing (and pervasively middling) effort from a once flawless filmmaker.

** out of ****