Licorice Pizza is a lush, funny, charming, moving early '70s San Fernando Valley period piece about a 25/15yo age gap romance...
Licorice Pizza is a lush, funny, charming, moving early ‘70s San Fernando Valley period piece about a 25/15yo age gap romance that’s a coming of age for both of them. But it’s okay cause the 15yo is the initiator and the boy, which is exactly how you pull the thesis/antithesis -> synthesis turn. See it.
“Licorice Pizza” was a LA record store that doesn’t show up in the movie at all, though there is actually a bit about contemporary vinyl economics. Also, there’s a subplot about pinball, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch of the classic tables used as props came from this girl I know.
Now that I think of it, the male lead’s “child star whose mom is busy managing shows in Vegas” is Jenny Lewis as hell.
Which, she’s only even in the movie long enough to give that reason why she can’t escort him to a NY show (a requirement she portrays as externally imposed and unfortunate), thus bringing in Alana instead
(Actually just noticed that the arc that ends with them getting together kinda starts with her in the audience excitedly claiming him with substitute-maternal pride. Like, “the 2021 age gap movie has not only a female-senior relationship but she mixes the roles of mommy and gf,” well it would!)
Compare to Almost Famous, the also-“'70s youth in the adult entertainment (no, not that way) business world” (though in fairness it totally smiles upon the fact this all happens in a world where he reads Deep Throat and swingers’ club ads in the mainstream newspaper), where the lead’s mom tries to project more stern authority but ultimately approves of him going on tour with rock bands.
Next step we need a movie where the lead’s mom tries to control and protect him, and this is portrayed from the adult perspective as understandable and even appropriate but within the moral calculus of the movie this still makes her an enemy and his slipping her a righteous triumph
Also on the femdom tip, on top of having a confrontational personality in general, there are sequences that serve to establish Alana knows Krav Maga and is surprisingly, intensely good at driving a heavy truck