Shot in the sprawling exurb of Los Angeles where Anderson was raised and lives with his family, “Licorice Pizza” centers on Gary Valentine, a teenage actor and entrepreneur, and Alana Kane, a 20-something woman he meets while waiting to have his school picture taken (she’s working as an assistant to the handsy photographer). Gary enlists Alana in his scheme: They start a waterbed company, audition for movies and get involved in a mayoral campaign. Set during 1973, amid great political change, shifts in popular culture and a gas crisis, their adventures cause them to brush up against old and new Hollywood. Sean Penn plays a William Holden doppelgänger, while Bradley Cooper portrays producer Jon Peters, the former hairstylist and boyfriend of Barbra Streisand, depicted as a libidinous id in polyester.

The result is a dramatic change of pace from much of Anderson’s other work, with the loose, funny, gloriously buoyant story of “Licorice Pizza” standing in contrast to the avarice and paranoia that he depicted in “There Will Be Blood” and “The Master,” or the Gothic romance at the center of “Phantom Thread.”