After more than eighteen months, I finally returned to the movie theater for this little gem. Fortunately, masks were required in addition to showing proof of vaccination, so I did feel safe.
This film is certainly unique. Meeting seemingly by chance as Alana (Alana Haim) works her boring day job, Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) is immediately smitten and believes that they are destined for each other despite Alana being ten years older than him and he's still a teenager, so yeah, a relationship would be illegal and yet we are supposed to root for them to end up together.
Still, while Alana struggles to find her true passion in adulthood, Gary has his life all figured out. He's done some acting, still auditions for commercials and is also a wheeler dealer, starting his own businesses, somehow, though his mother (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) is rather supportive of all of his various endeavors, including water beds (gross) and an arcade.
Along the way, there are tons of crazy adventures for the teen, including delivering a water bed to Barbra Streisand's boyfriend (at the time), Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper), who threatens to kill his little brother and he gets arrested for what turns out to be for nothing as the cops foolishly arrested and manhandled the wrong child. Alana has her own adventures, dabbling in acting and meeting famous movie star, Jack Holden (Sean Penn), probably based on William Holden before she starts volunteering for a young politician, Joel Wachs (Benny Safdie) who is single for a reason, as it turns out. But, of course, all of their various adventures make them realize how much they like each other and end up together. While the relationship might be all wrong as I don't understand why a grown woman (albeit one who still lives at home with her parents) would find a teenager super attractive (though life with him is never boring) but at least it was a satisfying ending.
Despite me not being completely thrilled with the age difference in the plot, it kept you on your toes and was never boring and Paul Thomas Anderson is a masterclass, with brilliant writing and cinematography and flawless editing, this film is nevertheless superb and definately a must see by all. Grade: A-
Side Notes:
-An interesting tidbit is that Alana's family, including her parents and sisters are portrayed by her real life sisters and parents.
-Cooper Hoffman is the son of the late great actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.
-The controversary surrounding John Michael Higgins faking a Japanese accent while he speaks to his Japanese wife while speaking normally to everyone else is just stupid and ultimately doesn't serve a purpose as he can't understand Japanese anyway but both of them certainly seem to understand English. And no, I didn't find that part funny.
-On the other hand, the scene where they let gravity take the moving van to get gas is both thrilling and hilarious.
-Skylar Gisondo is also great as Lance, a fellow child actor, who Alana brings to a Seder and he announces that he's an atheist so the evening doesn't end well.
-While Alana might be a well-known singer, I truly think she's also an extremely talented actress.
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