Although I thought "Licorice Pizza" is otherwise very charming and lovely and the acting by Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman was fantastic, the age difference (25 vs. 15) was unnecessary and really weird and kinda gross and I don't get why he wrote it this way. It's confusing.
I know, wet blanket and all that, but I kinda tend to think grown ass adults and teenagers shouldn't date and it's very strange for a filmmaker to pretend this is hunky dory. It's not.
I have no problem with Paul Thomas Anderson loving a character as much as he loves Gary. That's fine. He's a fun character. But he's a fucking kid. He's 15. And I don't care how enterprising he is, he's still a damn kid and shouldn't be making out with adults. No. Stop that.
I'll also say: the way some grown men tend to gloss over relationships between adult women and teenage boys, as though it's not exploitative and doesn't cause lasting harm to these CHILDREN, is a huge fucking bummer and makes me question their critical thinking skills.
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