Set in 1973 and named for a beloved SoCal record chain, “Licorice Pizza” brings writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson nearly full circle back to the neighborhoods where he grew up — back to the disco-colored Wonderland where “Boogie Nights” took place and the decade when the indie auteur was born.
Fans of Anderson’s filmography shouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised to see him once again finding colorful characters in the outer folds of Los Angeles’ satellite suburbs: He did it before with “Punch-Drunk Love” (giving Adam Sandler his juiciest role to date) and “Magnolia” (where the same went for Tom Cruise), always returning to the question of “What Do Kids Know?” — as the imaginary quiz show in that film was called.
“Licorice Pizza” is one of the rare Anderson movies to be missing a father figure — the director’s own was an Ohio TV host who went on to become the voice of ABC once he relocated to California, and dads (or parental proxies) have played an important role in every one of his movies till now. With every film, Anderson elevates prodigal sons and monster patriarchs to mythic status, whether it’s an endearingly naive porn performer like Dirk Diggler (“Boogie Nights”) or a self-made oil tycoon such as Daniel Plainview (“There Will Be Blood”). And every time, he surrounds them with surrogate families, lifting from his idol Robert Altman the idea that no character in an ensemble is minor, no matter how brief the appearance.
Altman’s influence can be felt in nearly all Anderson’s films, though the younger helmer brings to that equation a technical virtuosity and near-Kubrickian discipline that set his work apart, rewarding multiple viewings and all but demanding debate when the lights come up. Not all the movies are masterpieces (impressive though it may be, “The Master” has more than its share of flaws, for example), and good luck finding two people who agree on their favorite. So read on for Variety chief film critic Peter Debruge’s personal ranking of Anderson’s oeuvre. You might be surprised by the one he holds head and shoulders above the rest.
9. Inherent Vice (2014)
Like the city of Los Angeles and its endlessly tessellating system of suburbs, Anderson’s films can be infamous for their sprawl. At their worst (and this leaky piñata of a Thomas Pynchon adaptation is the worst), they feel chaotic and over-crowded, if only because we get one-joke weirdos in place of the three-dimensional eccentrics that populate Anderson’s other group portraits — movies where the director succeeds in juggling dozens of characters without short-changing anyone. In what might have been “The Long Goodbye” by way of “The Big Lebowski,” Joaquin Phoenix’s self-medicating “Doc” pot-smokes his way through a SoCal conspiracy, ending up bleary eyed and disoriented as the audience.
8. The Master (2012)
For better or worse, Daniel Day-Lewis’ frothing oil-baron performance in “There Will Be Blood” loomed so large that it posed a nearly impossible act for anyone to follow, dwarfing PTA’s next project. This time, the director’s target was a real person — a cult leader inspired by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard (the meatiest role yet for frequent Anderson collaborator Phillip Seymour Hoffman) — which called for a degree of caution, lest he rankle the famously litigious “religion.” Trouble is, without a fair amount of outside reading and research, audiences were hard-pressed to make much of this rowdy critique, focusing instead on Joaquin Phoenix’s character, the kind of broken individual on whom false prophets prey.
7. Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
Perhaps most significant for proving to Adam Sandler’s fans and detractors alike that the man-child comedian had depths that were going virtually unutilized, this sweet, uncomfortably intense romance situates audiences in the high-stress zone that is Barry Egan’s head. Expertly deploying surreal touches, abstract kaleido-strobic interstitials and a nerve-ratcheting drums-and-strings score, Anderson plays audiences like, well, a vintage harmonium, digging into what makes such a repressed character tick — or, more to the point, what makes him explode into a sliding door-smashing, soap dispenser-dismantling ball of rage. As Barry tells the mattress man, “I have a love in my life. It makes me stronger than anything you can imagine.”
6. Hard Eight (1996)
In the wake of “Reservoir Dogs,” it seemed as if every wannabe director coming up was bent on out-Tarantino-ing Tarantino, spinning hyper-stylized thrillers about reckless heists and ruminating hitmen. Anderson’s Reno-set debut — an expansion of his 1993 short “Cigarettes and Coffee” — serves up its share of crime-movie elements, including gambling, kidnapping and extortion, but it’s ultimately a touching and tragic father-son tale about a shadowy older man (Philip Baker Hall, whose underacting is aces) and the hapless lost cause (John C. Reilly) he takes under his wing. Right out of the gate, Anderson demonstrated he had a voice, a vision and the capacity to command terrific performances from an unconventional ensemble.
5. Phantom Thread (2017)
Day-Lewis doesn’t act often, so it was already something of an event when, half a decade after “Lincoln” and immediately precipitating his retirement, he reunited with Anderson for this bespoke portrait of a singularly obsessive fashion designer. The film can feel every bit as fastidious and control-freakish as its subject at times, resulting in a kind of frosty austerity, and yet there’s an irreverent ribbon of humor running through the project, which pokes wicked fun at its complex and weirdly self-destructive protagonist. Anderson has cited haute couture legend Cristóbal Balenciaga as his inspiration, though admirers would do well to seek out Olivier Meyrou’s eye-opening Yves Saint Laurent doc, “Celebration,” for details meticulously reproduced in the film.
4. Licorice Pizza (2021)
The latest twist in Anderson’s unpredictable career was his decision to follow his streak of tony great-man take-downs to make a free-wheeling coming-of-age comedy, à la “American Graffiti” and “Dazed and Confused,” and yet, the gloriously retro “Licorice Pizza” proves to be one of the director’s most heartfelt movies yet. Shot during the pandemic, this affectionate time capsule allows the director to carry on the creative partnership with the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman by writing a role for his son Cooper, who plays an impossibly self-confident SoCal teenager intent on wooing a woman roughly a decade his senior (Alana Heim). Coming on the heels of Bradley Cooper’s gonzo leisure-suit cameo, the delivery-truck scene is hall-of-fame material.
3. Boogie Nights (1997)
Hollywood may be full of hangers-on and has-beens, but in the world of porn, everyone’s a star — at least, that’s the sense one gets from Anderson’s slick homage to the adult film industry of the 1970s, which turns toxic with the introduction of drugs and home video in the ’80s. Set in the San Fernando Valley, the film follows much the same arc as countless “A Star Is Born” narratives that’ve come before, but brings such heart to the equation that the usual showbiz cynicism takes a back seat to genuine interpersonal dynamics, as Mark Wahlberg’s gifted-if-not-especially-talented Dirk Diggler creates a kind of chosen family for himself.
2. There Will Be Blood (2007)
The twin forces of commerce and Christianity go head-to-head in Anderson’s epic American showdown, set in the early 20th century, when opportunists like Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) could strike it rich overnight digging for silver — or that most precious of resources, black gold. Like a fresh oil well, the movie erupts with personality, pitting the seasoned capitalist against a self-righteous (if hypocritical) man of the cloth as Daniel spars with a country preacher (Paul Dano) over a lucrative claim. Much as there is to admire in the film — and this is one for the ages, like watching Elmer Gantry throw down with an Ayn Rand titan — it’s hardly a fair fight, but sets up the film’s incomparably cathartic “I drink your milkshake” finale.
1. Magnolia (1999)
It never rains in Southern California, or so the old song goes, though a weather forecast at the outset of PTA’s magnum opus gives it a 75% chance. Chance. That’s the operative word in this emotional merry-go-round of reckonings and reconciliations, which hinges on a central paradox en route to its torrential climax: Anderson muses about the freak factors that govern our fates, even as he plays god behind the scenes. Over the course of three-plus hours, he orchestrates this symphony-like ensemble piece as a series of dramatic waves, set in motion by Jon Brion’s carnival-ride score and the soul-shredding voice of Aimee Mann. Nine Mann songs, nine major characters, interwoven with a staggering degree of complexity. Inspired by Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts,” but pitched at a kind of doomsday intensity, “Magnolia” unfurls as if a biblical judgment day were looming and these people — parents and their damaged-goods kids, mostly — had only 24 hours to sort out a lifetime of regrets and unfinished business. As a Tony Robbins-like motivational speaker, Tom Cruise is toxic masculinity personified, though it’s Julianne Moore, as his dad’s teeth-gnashing trophy wife, who reminds that, even in a movie as perceptive as this one, we can never really know someone.
Read More About:
ncG1vNJzZmiukae2psDYZ5qopV%2BhtrTA0minmq2cYsGpu8yaqmaZnpmys7%2FOp2SfoZyiwG6%2BwKeinpxdrLyzv9NmmZ6rpGQ%3D