Film review: Licorice Pizza

Unconventional romcom set in 1970s LA

Licorice Pizza is the “metaphorical shot in the arm we all need right now, to go with the real one”, said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail. Paul Thomas Anderson’s “irresistible” new film brims with “effervescent charm” and “belly laughs”; “I cherished every minute of it.” Set in California in 1973, the film is a “boy-meets-girl-at-high-school” tale, but the twist is that only one of the lovers is at school. That’s 15-year-old Gary (Cooper Hoffman), a child actor who falls for a 25-year-old photographer’s assistant, Alana (Alana Haim) when she visits his school to take the pupils’ pictures.

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