THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER6, 2021 63
Set in 1973, in the San Fernando Valley, Paul Thomas Anderson’s film stars Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman.
THECURRENT CINEMA
BEFORE TIMES
“Licorice Pizza” and “The Hand of God.”BY ANTHONYLANE
ILLUSTRATION BY NADA HAYEK
THE CRITICS
And, at the climax, they both run—
Alana going from right to left across
the screen, and Gary going in the other
direction, equal and opposite. Wait for
the meet and greet.
Anderson’s characters have taken to
their heels before. Remember the ex-
plosive scene in “The Master” (2015),
when Joaquin Phoenix burst through asame urgency, even when they have no-
where special to go. The hero of “Lic-
orice Pizza,” Gary Valentine (Cooper
Hoffman), races toward a gas station,
past a line of idling vehicles, to the sound
of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?” For
her part, the heroine, Alana Kane (Alana
Haim), sprints to a police station, after
Gary has been inexplicably arrested.T
he running time of the new Paul
Thomas Anderson movie, “Lico-
rice Pizza,” is a hundred and thirty-three
minutes, and much of that time is oc-
cupied with running. Think of Shirley
MacLaine, haring along at the end of
“The Apartment” (1960), with her head
thrown back, then imagine a whole film
in which people dash around with the