Review: Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Licorice Pizza' is a valentine to the Valley. And Alana Haim
For all the delightful surprises packed into Paul Thomas Anderson's new film — starting with its title, "Licorice Pizza" — it may not shock you to learn that it opens with a hell of a pick-up scene. They're something of an Anderson specialty.
How this filmmaker loves his hard-sell hustlers and go-for-broke dreamers, and what delicious words he gives them as they chase their desires: love and sex, sure, but also money, power, greatness. Think of the fashion designer flirting with a waitress in "Phantom Thread," but also the oil baron greasing his way into a town's good graces in "There Will Be Blood." Think of the cult leader reaching out to a lost soul in "The Master," dangling the possibility of salvation with an unmistakable hint of seduction.
That leader was played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, which imparts a certain eerie exhilaration to the opening scenes of "Licorice Pizza." The pick-up artist here — played by Cooper Hoffman, the late actor's son — is a 15-year-old go-getter with
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