L IFESTYLE /C ULTURE
Youth is Wasted on the Young in ‘Licorice Pizza’
ARTS SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
THE COMING-OF-AGE
genre is a chameleon — a
vessel easily adaptable to a
host of diff erent backdrops and
climates — and Paul Th omas
Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza” is
the lizard languishing in the
summer of the San Fernando
Valley in California in 1973.

Th ose asked to come of age
are Gary Valentine (Cooper
Hoff man, son of the late
Philip Seymour Hoffman),
a big-boned 15-year-old
kid-actor quickly running out
of roles to play, and Alana Kane
(Alana Haim), an easy-breezy
LEGAL DIRECTORY
25-year-old with a level head
weighing her prospects and
biding her time as a photogra-
pher’s assistant.

And, like a chameleon,
“Licorice Pizza” is a visual
spectacle, shot on 35 mm fi lm
that captures the dreaminess of
the early ’70s but with awkward
physicalities — some racist and
sexist tropes that were better
left in the ’70s — that limit
its majesty.

Gary, the smooth-talking
hustler, is followed around by
an entourage of latchkey-kid
Lost Boys, his minions in
his business ventures — fi rst
a waterbed company, then a
pinball arcade. He’s their Peter
Pan, the boy who never grows
Alana Haim (left) and Cooper Hoff man in “Licorice Pizza,” Paul Thomas Anderson’s most recent fi lm
up, but he acts the role of the
de facto adult (the last role
Gary seems well-equipped
to play, having grown out
of the ones available to him
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14 by his middle-aged talent
agent friends).

Gary’s reality as a teenager
betrays his desire to act as
the adult: He’s pimply and
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Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon
red-faced and tucks the tail of
his shirt into his pants with
clammy hands. He goes to
bars and knows the patrons
on a fi rst-name basis, but
he sits and orders rounds of
only Coca-Cola.

But his latest and greatest
attempt to grow up, thwarted
by his teenage susceptibilities,
is his infatuation with Alana,
whom he meets when she taps
her toes and holds the mirror
Gary uses to fi x his straw-
berry hair — a little greasy, but
combed over meticulously —
before he takes his high school
yearbook picture.

Although Haim tackles her
debut acting role with impres-
sive ease and complexity, Alana
Kane the character (and Haim
by default) spends the fi lm let
down by her counterparts.

As a photographer’s assis-
tant, she’s slapped on the
tuchus by a photographer but
brushes it off with a roll of
her eyes.

When she takes former
child actor Lance home for
Shabbat dinner with her family
(the real-life Haim family),
she fi nds out that the boy she
believed was Jewish actually
identifi es as an atheist. He
refuses to do the Motzi over
the challah, saying that if
God existed, he wouldn’t have
permitted the suff ering in the
Vietnam War.

See Licorice, Page 20
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



L ifestyle /C ulture
The Best Jewish Shows and Movies of 2021
ARTS JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
FROM THE FAMILIAR
(“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) to
the obscure (“The Club”), from
the educational (“Jerusalem”)
to the absurd (“Big Mouth”),
from the controversial (“My
Unorthodox Life”) to the meh
(“The Shrink Next Door”), it
was an active year of Jewish-
themed entertainment.

Since we fancy ourselves
great critics here at the Jewish
Exponent, we watched, lauded
and excoriated a lot of it.

Here’s our comprehensive
list of the best Jewish-themed
shows and movies of 2021.

third decade (it started in
2000), “Curb” has taken on a
timeless quality.

It doesn’t matter which
cultural moment we’re living
through in American life.

Larry David’s perverse but
incisive questioning of social
conventions and
moral codes is always hilarious and
thought-provoking. Netflix’s “The Club”
Unless you’re an avid
watcher of Jewish shows (my
wife) or Turkish shows (my
grandma), “The Club” won’t
come up on your Netflix
algorithm. But it’s worth trying
to find.

The six-episode season has
several good qualities, starting
with its Jewish protagonists.

Shows HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Plus, who knew the Jews had
In its 11th season and such a long history in Turkey?
Netflix’s “Big Mouth”
Streaming’s endless library
offers wacky creators a lot
of space to be their weirdest
selves. That’s what “Big Mouth,”
an animated coming-of-age
sitcom, is for Jewish comedian
Nick Kroll, its creator, writer
and primary voice actor.

But at its best, “Big Mouth”
also sheds light on the awkward,
painful and utterly hilarious
experience of going through
puberty. And season five this
year offered a new twist: What
happens when teenagers learn
to hate and resent each other?
Netflix’s “My Unorthodox Life”
Love Julia Haart as an
embodiment of
female empowerment or hate her
as a denigrator of Orthodox
Judaism. You can’t deny that
she has your attention.

Any nine-episode binge
series that has two Wikipedia
sections devoted to its critical
reception is, at the very least,
starting a conversation.

TV right now.

And once you’re caught up,
you will enjoy this tense season
three episode that features
Brody, the greatest living
Jewish actor, playing a Jewish
investor who holds the balance
of power of a WASP-y corpora-
tion in his hands.

The episode also touches
on antisemitism in a subtle,
nuanced and even multi-gen-
erational fashion. It was one of
the better modern portrayals
of that perpetual illness.

CNN’s “Jerusalem”
Forget your
precon- ceived political notions about
CNN. After all, Fox News
is known for having a good
polling operation. These cable
news channels can do some
things right.

In CNN’s case, “Jerusalem”
is one of them. It’s a great
beginner’s history lesson about Beanie Feldstein’s role on FX’s
the holy city, as told by history “American Crime Story”
I will leave it to the
professors/total nerds.

Exponent’s Sasha Rogelberg
Adrien Brody’s guest appear- to explain how Feldstein,
known previously for playing
ance on HBO’s “Succession”
Maybe you don’t watch comedic roles in “Lady Bird”
“Succession.” Well, you should,
because it’s the best show on
See Screen, Page 20
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DECEMBER 30, 2021
15