MovieChat Forums > Licorice Pizza (2021) Discussion > The Emperor has no clothes (Spoiler aler...

The Emperor has no clothes (Spoiler alert)


I have enjoyed Paul Thomas Anderson's films. But not this one. There were a few minutes of entertainment in the two hours and thirteen minutes, but not many. The William Holden and Jon Peters nods were great. Kevin Smith has spoken of a conversation he had with Jon Peters where Jon refers to himself as, "Being from the street." No one seems to be troubled by the affair between a fifteen year old and someone who is ten years older. Sure, the twenty-five year old is immature for her age. And the early maturing just barely post pubescent teenager is clever and entrepreneurial. Had the genders of the two protagonists been reversed would there have been an outrage? Kind of a Nabokov thing. Now, that story "Lolita" was meant to be and is creepy. Yet this is presented as joyous and fun. The Emperor has no clothes. The praise this film is getting is puzzling. 7.9 on IMDB...really! On RT the critics have it at 91% and the audience score is 69%. It is like everyone will not admit this is a bad film because they fear going against an auteur. And being labelled as unsophisticated. The Emperor has no clothes.


“Stop sounding like a philosophy guy, Albert Einstein.”- Alana to Gary
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It flowed. It was strange. I dug it.

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I don’t know who Paul Thomas Anderson is, but I enjoyed this film at face value. It really captured the youth culture of the ‘70s, especially in SoCal/LA. There were blurred lines between adulthood and teens back then. The drinking age was 18 so teens and young adults partied together. There were remnants of the hippy culture mixed with 80s consumerism. It was a weird, clunky era. This film nailed it.

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I have never been to the SoCal/LA area. Still an affair between a 15 year old and a 25 year old. A ten year difference is beyond the Ken. I mean 18 or 19 and 15 would be a stretch. Again, the 15 year old was mature for his age and the 25 year old was immature. But that is a significant gap. It was and is an illegal act.. And dare I say it, immoral. Of course now a days you have people who want to change the term for pedophiles to MAPs. Wait a minute, I think I just went off to the deep end there.

Alana: "You know I'm twenty-five, right? I can be your friend, but I can't be your girlfriend. That's illegal."

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I've not heard of anyone who wants to rename, or defend, pedophiles, but I think you are mixing up your terms. A pedophile is an adult who is attracted to prepubescent children-- those typically 9 and younger. That's not what is going on in the film at all. A mature 15-year-old boy, who is financially independent and working as an actor, starts dating an immature 25-year-old girl, who still lives at home, and is still living like she's a teenager. And, the film is set in the 1970s, when society was less judgmental about that sort of thing, and people were generally more free to live life on their own terms.

Immoral is a tricky term, as that's tied into each person's own personal views of right or wrong. We can bring legal issues into it, but that's tricky, too, as legal does not always imply correct. Plenty of things are illegal that many think should not be, and vice versa.

Best I can say is that as depicted in the film, the relationship makes perfect sense, and I have no issue with it. You do, which is equally valid a point, and that's about all we can really say.

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The characters never had sex, and kissed only at the very end which was up to three years after the opening scene. Read the timeline thread. Sure, it is odd for a 28 yo to date an 18 yo, but not illegal.

Everything about Gary was asynchronous. He had an acting career, a waterbed business, and owned an arcade. On paper, he looked like a middle aged man. Whereas Alana was immature for her age. Working odd jobs, no college, and living with her parents.

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I didn't buy them as 15 and 25 for one second during the whole story. They both seemed like they were 20-ish.

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Well I have the solution

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qFF2v8VsaA

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The name of the video/song, "Emperor's new clothes." I get it...cute, but, wrong. Are you glum?

Marcus Tullius Cicero: Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error".


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Depends on the lunar phase

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Good answer.....no, great answer....You made me laugh....Thank You

Gertrude Stein: "Silent gratitude isn't very much use to anyone."

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🍻

Wow those are tiny emojis!

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Wrong.

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