Pprotagonists the fantastic ones Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman – son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman – on first TV this evening at 9.20pm on Rai 3 in Licorice Pizza. Fascinating love story between a high school boy and an older girl and training trip to California psychedelic music of the seventies. The freest and “brightest” film by the great American director (currently working on a new project, still untitled, which will star Regina Hall and Rachael Taylor).
Licorice Pizzathe plot of the movie
Set in the San Fernando Valley of the Seventies, Paul Thomas Anderson’s film tells the story the story of a high school student: the enterprising, but insecure, Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman), with a career started since childhood.
One day, while at school they take their yearbook photo, the 15 year old boy meet Alana Kane (Alana Haim), assistant to the high school photographer and ten years older than him by which he is strongly struck while she slows him down a bit. The two they start dating and spending time together, making more and more friends.
The two end up start a waterbed businessrun by Gary and with Alana as an employee, and they cross over a series of wacky adventures That they’ll take them all the way to Hollywood. Where they will meet the famous actor Jack Holden (Sean Penn) and the bizarre producer Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper). And who knows if maybe between the two love will finally blossom.
A special love in 1970s California
After having set the acclaimed London in the refined Fifties The hidden thread with Daniel Day Lewis, Paul Thomas Anderson back to his native San Fernando Valley and to those seventies already recalled in previous films such as Boogie Nights And Form defect. In the his freest and most luminous work.
Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman in a scene from “Licorice Pizza”. (Eagle Pictures)
Licorice Pizza is a revisitation of the classic dei boy meets girl: the two protagonists (both rookies) they know each other and they begin a (perhaps) exuberant and crooked love story.
The title refers to a well-known record store chain of the period. In the background of the film, symbolic episodes of America at the time pass by. From the post-hippie movement changes to the 1973 gas crisis, up to the Nixon presidency. With particular attention to Decadent Hollywoodembodied by one bizarre array of characters halfway between reality and fiction.
As Sean Penn’s Jack Holden – modeled on the real William Holdenfamous actor of Golden Age masterpieces such as Sunset Boulevard – and the Jon Peters played by Bradley Cooper. Very funny “hallucinated” version of the real Petersfilm producer (and former hairdresser) at the time Barbra Streisand’s partner.
Despite the thousand suggestions, Anderson never loses focus on the two protagonistsplayed by a pair of extraordinary newcomers. Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim I’m bvery ravenous in restoring, with freshness and ingenuity, all the nuances of a feeling that is born, between discoveries, escapes, rapprochements.
Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman. (Getty Images)
The protagonists Cooper Hoffman and Alana Haim
Talent inherited from father Philip Seymour – who had already worked with Paul Thomas Anderson in The Master and his historic friend – the young actor born in 1993 has lwhat it takes to become a star just like his father.
Two films starring him will be released in the next few months. He will act alongside Christoph Waltz in the action comedy Old Guy. AND then in independent film The Trashers: a biopic about the rise and fall of Jimmy Galante, the Connecticut garbage magnate and associate of the Genovese crime family.
Musician and family friend of Anderson himself, Alana Haim was already famous as guitarist of the band Haim together sisters Este and Danielle (also in the film), and for now he focuses on their tour for the United States. But, in a recent interview to the New York Timesstated that he would gladly return to acting if good scripts came along. And, why not, once again with his friend Paul Thomas Anderson.
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