Set against the sun-bleached sprawl of the San Fernando Valley in 1973, Paul Thomas Anderson's comedy drama follows two people who keep circling each other without quite landing.
What is Licorice Pizza about?
Gary Valentine is a teenage actor with a knack for hustling his way into whatever business catches his eye, and Alana Kane is a photographer's assistant several years his senior who gets pulled into his orbit almost by accident. Neither of them fits neatly into the label of a couple, and the film resists rushing them toward one. Instead it drifts through a loose string of ventures and misadventures, waterbeds, pinball machines, a local election, each one giving Gary and Alana a fresh reason to stay entangled in each other's lives. Anderson builds the Valley itself into a character, full of strip malls, agents, and minor celebrities passing through, and lets the period detail do quiet work rather than calling attention to itself. What holds the film together is less plot than rhythm: the push and pull of two people who cannot quite name what they are to one another, filmed with an affection for the era that never tips into nostalgia for its own sake.
About the cast
Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman lead as Alana and Gary, both making their feature debut in the central roles. Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, Benny Safdie, Skyler Gisondo, and Mary Elizabeth Ellis fill out a supporting cast of characters who drift briefly through the pair's orbit across the Valley's scattered businesses and back rooms.
Context & significance
Licorice Pizza is a joint production of Canada and the United States, released in 2021 and written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. It sits within his recurring interest in the San Fernando Valley as a setting, following a loosely structured, character-driven approach rather than a conventional plot arc. The comedy and drama in the film work together through observation rather than setup and punchline, built from a series of small-scale schemes and social entanglements rather than a single throughline.
Watching Licorice Pizza on Ktime
Licorice Pizza is available on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, giving viewers the choice of either format. The film can be streamed by logging into a K-Time account, and the platform's Farsi interface makes it straightforward for Persian-speaking viewers to find and watch titles like this one.