Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest entry in his cinematic canon, Licorice Pizza, came and went at the end of 2021. Like many of his previous films, Licorice Pizza collected a half-dozen award nominations before getting buried beneath the onslaught of streaming content. But months later, I’ve been delightfully surprised that the film has made itself comfortable in my memory. 

Set in the 1970s hue of Southern California, Gary Valentine falls head over heels for Alana Kane. Ten years his senior, it is love at first sight for Gary when the two cross paths at his school; Gary, an eighth grader waiting in line for school photos, and Alana, an employee for the photography business tasked with taking headshots. Gary’s persistence in his pursuit of an older woman is delightfully bizarre. The boy exudes confidence not just in his romantic endeavors; at fifteen he is a budding entrepreneur, the ring leader of his mischievous crew, and father-like figure to his younger brother. But Gary’s confidence does not translate to maturity. His short-lived acting career is all but expired and his entrepreneurial ventures are sporadic and half-baked. With failed attempts at selling waterbeds and pinball machines, Gary is quite literally bouncing from thing to thing. 

Alana Kane, on the other hand, is stuck in prolonged adolescence. She is a 25-year-old living under her parent’s roof (and authority), with a professional career confined to any monotonous 9-5 she can find. Alana doesn’t know what to make of the 15-year-old child actor who wants to marry her. She is both flattered and put off. Alana wants to finally “grow up” and any involvement with Gary seems like a step in the wrong direction. And despite her intention, she continues to find herself in his company. The progression of Gary and Alana’s relationship feels less like a romantic pursuit and more like a collision. Sure, there is a fair dose of flirtation, jealousy, fallouts, and tender moments that would put their relationship within the bounds of a standard love story. But their dynamic is often akin to frenemies on an elementary school playground; heated arguments about who is cooler, no I’m not — yes you are spats, sharing dreams of one day owning a pinball store, and what it would be like to make it big in Hollywood.

The film features a slew of cameos through the push-pull love story of Gary and Alana. And while Gary and his friends may be the youngest on screen, there is an adolescent strand through almost all of the characters. Sean Penn plays an aging movie star who, after having one too many, re-enacts an action scene from one of his acclaimed movies for an eager audience. Bradley Cooper plays another self-obsessed Hollywood star with a temper and uncontrollable libido. Maya Rudolph, John C. Reilly, Tom Waits, the list goes on of notable actors making an appearance in Licorice Pizza as adults acting like children. With each vignette, it’s as if the filmmakers take adolescent folly and magnifies it with age. Which are equal parts hilarious and uncomfortable. I’ve long since abandoned my seashell necklace and AXE body spray but the idea that my 8th-grade oddities and faults continue with me as I age makes me squirm. The examples within Licorice Pizza brought into focus what T.S. Eliot wrote almost 100 years ago in his play The Cocktail Party. Eliot says

Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm, but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.

In an unforeseen turn, the foolishness of Licorice Pizza provides a lexicon for naming, As Eliot opines, the tendency to think well of ourselves. Which, for me, has meant fewer shadows to hide in when confessing to God and neighbor. It’s easy to cloak my wrongs under the banner of pride or selfishness or vanity. What comes as a challenge is specifically confessing a sharp tone of voice, steering conversations back toward myself, sharing my workout routine at a work party just to get an approving nod from Phil, or waging WWIII over how the dishwasher is loaded. It’s as if Licorice Pizza establishes a comedic bridge between actor and viewer. That, if we were up for it, we could see the absurdity in the characters and contemplate where their struggle to think well of themselves ends and our begins.

In the congregation of adult children, Licorice Pizza also offers a cloaked warning for those who think they’ve outgrown childishness. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the politician in the movie, Joel Wachs, was the only character who seemed to have it all together. His pursuits as a politician were noteworthy, and his commitment to his community admirable. But when the skeletons in his closet came tumbling out, there was no comedic relief to be had. His wrongdoing was cold, calloused, and dehumanizing. Speaking on the effects of self-centeredness in his book Low Anthropology, David Zahl says,

the person to be most leery of in life is the one who insists they don’t have a dark side. The great villains of history were all convinced of their own righteousness, after all.

Unlike the peripheral characters, there is a certain youthful tenderness and loyalty to Alana and Gary’s relationship I found more surprising than their age difference. It’s as if they favored presence with one another over romance; despite the raging hormones, it’s not until the final scene that they share a kiss. No matter the friction, they always make their way back to one another. Usually in the form of an all-out run. And with the roller coaster relationship they have throughout the film, there is a lot of running. 

The way that the film captures the golden glow and feel of 1970s Southern California is an unparalleled talent. But it feels like the story saves its best cinematic skill for when Alana or Gary are running toward each other. Whether it’s Alana chasing down a police car after Gary gets improperly arrested, Gary running through a golf course to help Alana, or the two sprinting toward each other in the final scene, the force that propels them toward one another is akin to something sacred.

It’s one thing to watch a Hollywood love story unfold in all of its flowery language, romantic endeavors, and starry-eyed wonder, it’s another thing entirely when the recurring theme is that in all of your shortcomings, your beloved will never tire in their pursuit of you. Despite it all, it means a lot to know someone’s running after you. And when your tendency to think well of yourself is your default, that one-way love barreling towards your mess may just turn out to be your saving grace.

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