Licorice Pizza

Following his jaunt to London with the hypnotic Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson returns to his usual Californian terrain for this unpredictable drama. Alana (Alana Haim) is an aimless photographer's assistant in her mid 20s who meets charismatic teenager Gary (Cooper Hoffman), a former child actor looking to invest his savings into any number of hare-brained schemes. When Gary asks Alana out on a date, a complex friendship begins, and the stage is set for a series of madcap and affecting escapades against the buzzing backdrop of 1970s Los Angeles. Anderson adopts his usual intuitive, freewheeling approach to movie-making, and builds his spare narrative around ambitious set pieces. The best of those hinges on Bradley Cooper's riotous cameo as a volatile movie producer whose desire to buy a waterbed spirals into chaos. The period is captured through pitch-perfect production design and costuming, while the young leads give sparkling performances that easily sell the film's smooth blend of melancholy uncertainty and nostalgic sweetness.