For his ninth feature film, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Punch Drunk Love, Inherent Vice, There Will Be Blood, Magnolia) turns his multiple talents to a story about negotiating the perils of first love in 1973 San Fernando Valley. This love letter to a place and an era in which Anderson grew up is a loose, playful amble that gets by your (okay, my) cynical defenses and embeds itself in your consciousness to the point where you feel a part of it. This is Anderson at the height of his creative powers.