Film review: Licorice Pizza
Unconventional romcom set in 1970s LA
“The artist Louis Wain led, by any reckoning, a bizarre life,” said Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph. Wain became wildly popular in late Victorian England for his “lovably anthropomorphised” paintings of cats. But, stricken with grief by the early death of his wife (his sisters’ much older governess) and worn down by the need to provide for his widowed mother and five sisters, he spent the last two decades of his life in a psychiatric hospital in Tooting, his life and estate in tatters.
In this “odd, intrepid biopic”, Benedict Cumberbatch plays Wain as a classic “Cumberbatch type”: “distractable, eccentric, brilliant and sad”, while Claire Foy gives a “lovely performance” as his wife, Emily; Wain’s unstable sister is played, rather less successfully, by Andrea Riseborough. It’s a “comic yet melancholy” piece of “oddball-indie cinema” with enjoyably daft touches – cats’ miaows are translated using subtitles – and cameos from the likes of Olivia Colman and Richard Ayoade.
Whatever you think of Wain’s saucer-eyed “cat pics”, this “hyper-energetic” biopic is a bit relentless, said Matthew Bond in The Mail on Sunday. Director Will Sharpe seems to be trying to convey the chaos and creativity of Wain’s “restless mind”, but he overdoes it by loading the film with playful tricks, such as animated sequences featuring creatures that are part animal, part human. There’s certainly no shortage of whimsy in this “baroque comedy”, said Danny Leigh in the FT. But as Wain’s life falls apart, the film matures into a subtle and heartfelt study of ruined mental health. “Sharpe has made something sincerely strange, rather than its annoying cousin, zany.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Why are people and elephants fighting in Sri Lanka?
Under The Radar Farmers encroaching into elephant habitats has led to deaths on both sides
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
Indie film's 'very brief' use of AI sparks backlash and calls for boycotts
Talking Points Did the creators of a new horror movie make a deal with the artificial intelligence devil?
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Could Taylor Swift swing the election?
Today's Big Question The pop star has outsized influence — and that extends beyond the music industry
By Anya Jaremko-Greenwold Published
-
Puglia's rich medieval heritage
The Week Recommends Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II built 'the most flawless of all medieval European castles' in the southern Italian region
By The Week UK Published
-
Recipe: chickpea, cavolo nero and harissa stew
The Week Recommends Tinned tomatoes are warmed by harissa paste and become the base for a versatile stew
By The Week UK Published
-
A Very Private School: a 'moving, if sadly familiar' story from Charles Spencer
The Week Recommends Memoir of the privately educated boarder makes for 'horrific reading'
By The Week UK Published
-
Tropical Modernism: Architecture & Independence – rise and fall of unique design
the week recommends A 'nuanced' and 'scholarly' examination of European architecture across the 'late British empire'
By The Week UK Published
-
Harry Clarke: an 'effortlessly engrossing' one-man play
The Week Recommends Billy Crudup is 'hypnotic' but cannot 'paper over the defects'
By The Week UK Published
-
Lauren Oyler's favorite collection of essays that will leave you deep in thought
Feature The author recommends works by Elif Batuman, Mark Greif, and more
By The Week US Published
-
6 waterside homes that float
Feature Featuring a house with two luxury boats in Oregon and a 1968 Gibson Riverboat-turned-home in New York
By The Week Staff Published
-
Dresden: on the trail of a Romantic icon in Germany
the week recommends The Saxon city celebrates the 250th birthday of Caspar David Friedrich this year
By The Week UK Published