Film: “Licorice Pizza,” directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

There’s not much to love about being a teenager in the 1970s. The fashions were atrocious, haircuts were embarrassing, and everybody looked like a bad version of David Cassidy or Farah Fawcett Majors. So I say props to any filmmaker who can approach this with humor and a razor-sharp bullsh*t detector—a director like Paul Thomas Anderson.

In Anderson’s entertaining but flawed “Licorice Pizza” (2021), Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, plays Gary Valentine, a  15-year-old child actor from the San Fernando Valley who on his first day of school falls head over heels with Alana (Alana Haim) a twenty-something, hot-pants-clad yearbook photographer. Gary is so smitten, he tells his 8-year-old brother, “That’s the girl I’m going to marry someday.” Because of the age difference, Ilana resists, but Gary persists.

Thus begins a friendship in which Gary attempts to seduce Ilana, introducing her to his fast-lane LA crowd, then looking on wistfully as she in turn is seduced by the older men she meets on the process. In no particular order, Ilana sidles up to a Nicholson-style horn dog (a slick Sean Penn); meets his buddy (Tom Waits), and eventually cozies up to a mayoral candidate Joel Wachs (Bennie Safdie) who’s got a personal secret that isn’t ready for prime time.

The film is best when it lampoons real-life characters such as Jon Peters, the first boyfriend of Barbra Streisand (“it’s pronounced ‘Strei-SAND!” he screams at Gary). To no surprise, Peters is played to perfection by Bradley Cooper. Christine Ebersole is also excellent as an aging, hyper-neurotic actress. The one-note joke of Ilana as wannabe GF to the rich and famous, unfortunately, wears thin after awhile. And like Anderson’s “Boogie Nights,” the movie runs out of gas midstream.

For LOL yuks—at least some of the time anyway—“Licorice Pizza,” an obvious labor of love for PTA, is worth watching. Particularly when you want a glimpse (or a reminder) of the tacky 1970s Waterbed Generation. Whatever were we thinking?