Alana Haim admits to being 25, and may be 28. She has no idea what she wants to do. Cooper Hoffman is 15, a successful child actor, a budding entrepreneur -- waterbeds and newly decriminalized pinball machines -- and wants her.
Paul Thomas Anderson's latest movie is set, like Tarrantino's ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, in Los Angeles some time in the 1960s or 1970s -- the scripts make Leave It To Beaver contemporaneous with the Oil Crisis. Anderson takes a viewpoint that is more realistic, more sympathetic, and at the same time, more cynical. His camera looks at its subjects like 1970s cameras did; people are not flattered by the 1970s clothes they wear, and the visible architecture is tired and ugly. And no one approves of the relationship between the leads, not even Miss Haim.
The movie is filled out with contemporary individuals, some appearing under their real names -- John C. Reilly appears as Fred Gwynne in Munsters make-up, and Bradley Cooper as Jon Peters -- while others show up under pseudonyms -- Christine Ebersole is Lucy Doolittle, clearly a drunken, foul-mouthed Lucille Ball hyping a thinly disguised YOURS, MINE, AND OURS.
As for the story, well, it's like most of Anderson's movies, a tale about not particularly likeable people trying to be happy in a world that doesn't approve of anything. I suppose it reflects reality, in that it's thoroughly muddled, but I prefer a bit more clarity in my stories.
Paul Thomas Anderson's latest movie is set, like Tarrantino's ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, in Los Angeles some time in the 1960s or 1970s -- the scripts make Leave It To Beaver contemporaneous with the Oil Crisis. Anderson takes a viewpoint that is more realistic, more sympathetic, and at the same time, more cynical. His camera looks at its subjects like 1970s cameras did; people are not flattered by the 1970s clothes they wear, and the visible architecture is tired and ugly. And no one approves of the relationship between the leads, not even Miss Haim.
The movie is filled out with contemporary individuals, some appearing under their real names -- John C. Reilly appears as Fred Gwynne in Munsters make-up, and Bradley Cooper as Jon Peters -- while others show up under pseudonyms -- Christine Ebersole is Lucy Doolittle, clearly a drunken, foul-mouthed Lucille Ball hyping a thinly disguised YOURS, MINE, AND OURS.
As for the story, well, it's like most of Anderson's movies, a tale about not particularly likeable people trying to be happy in a world that doesn't approve of anything. I suppose it reflects reality, in that it's thoroughly muddled, but I prefer a bit more clarity in my stories.