Well, this one’s all over the map.
That’s no surprise, since we’re dealing with writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson; outré is his calling card. Who could forget the rain of frogs toward the end of 1999’s Magnolia, or the freakishly violent finale in 2007’s There Will Be Blood?
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| Alana (Alana Haim) surprises herself by agreeing to act as chaperone and driver for her new "business partner," Gary (Cooper Hoffman), and his younger brother, Greg (Milo Herschlag). |
Anderson also handles much of the cinematography here, alongside Michael Bauman; between them and production designer Florencia Martin, they’ve re-created the razzle-dazzle Valley vibe to a degree that’s almost spooky. That said, this is a heightened reality, laced with sidebar characters who usually are more burlesque than believable.
In fairness, though, this is a kinder, gentler Anderson: possibly because — in his typically outlandish way — he intends this film as a valentine to the area where he grew up. The on again/off again mutual crush that bonds this saga’s two primary characters is quite sweet at times … even as everything around them becomes aggressively weird.
(The film gets its title, by the way, from a once-famous chain of record stores that ruled Southern California from 1969 to ’85.)
Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman), a 15-year-old child star, meets cute with 25-year-old Alana Kane (Alana Haim) at his high school’s yearbook portrait day; she’s assisting the photographer. He boldly chats her up, much to her initially amused annoyance … but he’s so self-assured, so persistent, that she can’t help being curious.
Gary is an anomaly, in that all the adults in his orbit respect him as an equal (even if some roll their eyes when he leaves the room). He’s on familiar speaking terms with the manager at the iconic Tail o’ the Cock restaurant, who respectfully reserves Gary’s “special table” and also tolerates his presence at the bar (sipping only sodas, of course). Alana finds it hard to resist when he suggests that she meet him there, and it’s emotionally deeper than that; she surprises herself by accepting.
Although Hoffman’s Gary ostensibly dominates what subsequently transpires — frequently through sheer force of personality — this really is Alana’s story; she’s the character trying to figure out how to become a better version of herself, whereas Gary never really changes.
Alana is a failure-to-launch decades before that phrase became a thing, still living at home with her parents and two older sisters (Haim’s actual sisters, Danielle and Este), who also still are stuck with their parents. The high school photography gig obviously is just the latest in a long string of dead-end temp jobs that give Alana a reason to get up each morning.
Initially, she’s seduced more by Gary’s lifestyle and environment, than the boy himself. She agrees to become a combination chaperone/handler, leaving his mother Anita (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) more time to focus on the business side of his career.
Gary is a smooth-talking hustler and opportunist, forever hoping to take well-timed advantage of The Next Best Thing. Their bond subsequently becomes tighter, when Alana joins him as a partner in such schemes … but it’s all business (they insist, to each other). As time passes, both go out of their way trying to fall in love with other people, as a means of denying the fact that they’re falling in love with each other.
Which wouldn’t be that unreasonable. Gary may be a chronological 15, but he carries himself as older and wiser; Alana, despite her advanced age, still displays the gawky, coltish naïveté of a teenager. Maybe both should get credit for being 20. Ish.
Except that Alana really can’t commit. Every time her reserve begins to crumble, Gary’s surface maturity is overwhelmed by his inner horny teenager, as when he repeatedly asks to “see your boobs.” And she’s yanked back to reality. For a time…
Both young actors are vibrant and impressive, in their feature film debuts. Hoffman is the son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, who made several films with Anderson; the young man has his father’s charisma and bravura, guy-on-the-move assurance. His Gary is impossible to ignore, even when we frequently groan at his trying-too-hard efforts to be hip and cool.
Haim does him one better; she has presence. The camera absolutely adores her, Jewish nose and all (a detail I mention only because the film repeatedly does so). She has the breathless, je ne sais quoi radiance of an ingénue just waiting to be discovered (which she clearly has been, in this film). That blend of allure and innocence also is central to Alana’s character … even when she lapses into potty-mouthed retorts that would sound more appropriate coming from Gary.
Harriet Sansom Harris’ brief turn as a casting agent, during an interview with Alana, is absolutely hilarious.
All well and good … until their escapades turn increasingly random and bizarre.
What are we to make of an encounter with the thuggish police officers who drag Gary out of a convention center, savagely rough him up, and then simply cut him loose — without a word of apology — when it becomes clear that a mistake has been made? Is this Anderson’s brazen indictment of cops in general, or are we supposed to believe such treatment was par for the course in 1973?
And what’s the deal with John Michael Higgins’ grotesquely racist performance as a restaurant owner — one of many “respectful adults” in Gary’s life — who constantly insults his Asian wife?
Subsequent interactions with “Hollywood elites” also are quite peculiar. Sean Penn pops up — persuasively full-throttle — as Jack Holden, a hard-living movie star gone to seed, perhaps in the Robert Mitchum/Burt Lancaster mold (although neither of them ever was this unpleasant in real life). Holden’s lecherous attraction to Alana is beyond creepy.
Bradley Cooper arrives a bit later, as famed hairdresser-turned-producer Jon Peters, who was dating Barbra Streisand at the time. Unlike Penn’s Holden, Peters is a real person (still with us) who must have a thick skin and healthy sense of humor, because Cooper’s flamboyant, over-the-top performance — equal parts humorous and terrifying — qualifies as character assassination.
Cooper’s encounter with Gary and Alana triggers the film’s one genuinely suspenseful sequence, although it’s marred by childishly destructive behavior from both Gary and Alana. Again, what are we to make of this? Surely this can’t be dismissed as mere “acting out.”
Then there’s the matter of film’s signature cliché: running. Even if this is intended as metaphor — running toward and away from each other, emotionally speaking — the actual huffing and puffing is overdone. It’s like a bad musical, but instead of “Oh, gawd, they’re gonna sing again,” it’s “Oh, gawd, they’re gonna run again.”
Ultimately, the arbitrary nature of all these disconnected vignettes — and our inability to relate to them, or most of these characters, on any level — becomes tedious. In a word, this film becomes boring: a flaw not helped by its overly indulgent 133-minute length.
Finally, the fact that it’s a Best Picture nominee is absurd, as are the parallel nods for director and screenplay. What are Academy members smoking these days?
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