Licorice Pizza
In the valley of hucksters, thieves and peddlers one has to run downhill or be swallowed by them, so that either you become the commodity or the apprentice in line.
Alana knows all this. She still lives with her parents as an adult. His father restricts her hours and movements. She needs to get away. She needs to grow up. Act like one. So she gets involved with a teenager.
Gary knows who he is (something the Alana still`s searching for). He has a plan. To be somebody. Whatever it takes and whatever that means.
He's still 15. There is no nuance to his scams and manipulations. Besides his showmanship and craftiness, he's still learning the ploy and gets pointers by the hazy encounters he has with established con men (the restaurateur, Jon Peters, Jack Holden, Joel Wachs). He aspires to get there, but he's not there yet.
Alana and Gary's platonic adventures border on the idyllic summer love They start a business together. They hang out and learn from each other. He snaps at her because of her sexual ducking. She slaps him. He knows the restrictions she puts. She knows the ridiculousness of the pairing.
Gary has plenty of time to try and fail in frivolous devotion, whereas Alana is running out of chances and the fading sun-drenched California sky is calling it a day and a life for her.
They understand the rules of the game and want their personal goals achieved, so why spoil the follies? They let it roll.
The grip Gary has on Alana is the same one that every male figure has on her. “If it wasn't for me you wouldn't be here”. She wants independence and maturity, but she is shackled to an infantile role she keeps getting chained to, while stumbling into men that abuse their power and status in order to hold onto it.
These men, and in general the adults that inhabit this valley, are in a perpetual adolescence that contrasts with the maturity that the youngsters look to pretend. Their world has collapsed with new tendencies they can't catch up to and social issues they are incapable of resolving. These adults are nowhere to be found, but in an operatic lounge where they drink themselves to death while they wait for the incoming armageddon.
Is in Sean Penn’s Jack Holden that we get a glimpse of the eternal solitude one reaches in adulthood. Of the one who can't communicate his needs. Of the one who only lives off a romanticized yesterday.
Holden speaks to Alana by dialogues of an olden film and it might as well be another language for her. Holden wants “Grace”, but Alana can’t give that to him.
Like a pied piper from hell, Holden’s friend, Director Rex Blau, leads the congregation through the ruins they’ve made. He sets the motions for the upcoming attraction and instructs the mass that is about to be performed.
In the end, Holden couldn’t get to Grace or be consumed by the flames, but the crowd surely saluted him for the arousing attempt.
Every fraudster has perfected their game, from Peters aggressive molestation to Wachs pious form of activism. In Wachs we encounter the final figure of the “loyal” companion (the "wives" of the restaurateur, Barbra Streisand), his disregarded partner, who wants the councilman to be with him, but as Wachs points out, in the world of grown ups one has to accept reality and let go of their desires for the trick to work out.
For Alana it finally clicks. She's already in too deep. She's not a grown up, as neither of her contemporaries, so why should she not go for it?
With nowhere to go than Gary's arms, she flees to them. She runs backwards and Gary forwards. Their paths meet and in an embrace make their commitment official.
Alana runs with Gary again, until the day he will let go of her hand and she will have to buy from a salesman another love story or be the pusher herself.
"'Cause baby, you've shown me so many things that I never knew Whatever it takes, baby, I'll do it for you”