Licorice Pizza

There are two courtships unfolding in Licorice Pizza, and only one of them is happening on the screen. The other is between us and the movie. Guess who ends up punch-drunk and smitten?

It’s such a delectable film: I’ll be cutting myself another slice very soon.

Over his brilliant, wandering career, Anderson has shown us plenty of scuzz and grime, alongside flashes of kinetic verve and primordial howl. But Licorice Pizza is, by some measure, his most deliberately pleasant film to date.

In large part thanks to its fresh-faced stars, the charming Hoffman and the wildly charismatic Haim, I’m hard pressed to think of a recent movie whose world I would have liked to stay in longer.

Both leads are outstanding in their feature debuts.

..is anchored by the aesthetic meld Anderson has perfected in recent years, and by a pair of truly stunning debut performances that bring to life two of the most fully-formed, deeply complicated Hollywood characters in recent memory.