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Paul Thomas Anderson, a true Los Angeleno, returns to his paths (those of Los Angeles, of course) and as in "Boogie Nights," he throws us into the fabulous (?) seventies. After all, the similarities are many, starting with the cinematic environment, there the porn industry, here the more "amateur" world of young budding talents. And he does so with the help of two outstanding protagonists: he is the sixteen-year-old Cooper Hoffman (son of Philip Seymour, and indeed he resembles him quite a bit), she is Alana Haim, better known as the guitarist of the rock band Haim, in which she plays with her two sisters Danielle and Este, both present in the film. The Haims' parents, Mordechai and Donna, also make brief appearances; the latter is an art teacher who once had Paul Thomas Anderson as a student.
Los Angeles, 1973. The fifteen-year-old Gary Valentine falls in love with the twenty-five-year-old Alana Kane. He is already a mini-celebrity with entrepreneurial aspirations (first waterbeds, then pinball machines), she is dissatisfied with her life and doesn’t give in to the young Gary's advances, even though she lets herself be drawn into his escapades. I don't want to reveal too much about the film because the beauty of the work lies precisely in what unfolds scene by scene rather than as a fragmented whole.
Essentially, it is a love story, complicated and at times inappropriate. The age difference is a limitation, of course, but so are the personalities of the two protagonists, asymmetric and difficult to pin down. Anderson prefers the use of multiple genres within a single genre (it's fundamentally a comedy) but quickly shifts into "coming of age" and drama (as in the near-final), exalted by an always summery, sunny Los Angeles, where summer seems perpetual and eternal (never a drop of rain) capable of bursting dreams and illusions at every turn. He is a butterfly who thrives admirably in such a crazy environment, she, more reflective, wonders if it's worth loving in such a bizarre and, beneath it all, fake world. The rhythm is relaxed but pressing, and indeed, it proceeds more by episodes than by uniformity, and yet the episodes taken one by one are stunning. It's worth recalling two: Alana's encounter with the old movie star Jack Holden (an obvious reference to William Holden) played by Sean Penn, who, with the help of a famous director, Rex Blau (here referencing Mark Robson, a Hollywood director active in the fifties) played by an incredible Tom Waits, spontaneously reshoot a motorcycle scene from one of their cinematic hits; the encounter-clash between the two protagonists and Jon Peters, a star hairdresser dating Barbra Streisand (played by a convincing Bradley Cooper) who was a source of inspiration in the mid-seventies for Warren Beatty in shaping the psychology of his character in the blockbuster "Shampoo" by Hal Ashby.
Clearly, references and citations come thick and fast (the protagonist, plain and large-nosed, references Streisand of the era, also plain and large-nosed, to whom a talent scout ironically asks, "Is it in fashion?") just as the love story always unfolds on parallel tracks. We often find ourselves facing unusual and disorienting situations, passages that have nothing to do with what, at that moment, outlines the plot (see the fiancé of mayoral candidate Joel Wichs who finds strength in Alana’s liberatory embrace to endure his condition of "a closeted gay to the public eye"), but Anderson is great at bringing every time the focal point back to the center of action. Thus, the troubled love story between the two protagonists becomes a sort of (almost) Homeric tour de force in which one gets lost, changes partners and perspectives, but inevitably returns to the starting point.
Of course, Anderson, as in his previous works, proceeds with Altmanian conviction, it is his beacon, the director he has always been inspired by. Here there isn't the "human carnival" of "Magnolia," the protagonists are well-defined and everyone else is fundamentally just background, but certainly tying all the events, at times totally removed from the context, is a 100% Altman idea. As is the splendid reconstruction of the environment and the brilliant use of photography, that Anderson signs together with Michael Bauman.
The title, indecipherable by itself, refers to a chain of record stores in California and alludes to the shape of the vinyl (LP in English stands for Licorice Pizza, indeed). Speaking of records, it is worth noting the overwhelming soundtrack of the era that includes, among others, "July Tree" by Nina Simone; "Life on Mars?" by David Bowie and "But You're Mine" by Sonny & Cher.
While waiting for the new film by the director ("One Battle After Another," with Leonardo DiCaprio, releasing post-summer), I find it interesting to revisit, or watch, one of his best and perhaps most underrated films.
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