Inherent Vice - Review Thread

Gravity's Rainbow is one of the best--if not one of the most challenging--novels ever. Good write up. I have plans on seeing it tonight.

In the meantime, there's always this: www.amazon.com/Pictures-Showing-Happens-Pynchons-Gravitys-ebook/dp/B003YCPDDK/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1421100815&sr=8-4&keywords=gravitys+rainbow

Inherent Vice(1/9/2015)

There’s a movie called The Big Sleep which was made in 1946 by Howard Hawks that is considered one of the cornerstones of film noir. It’s got some iconic performances by Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, some really snappy pulp dialogue, and atmosphere to die for. Also, the mystery at its center makes very little sense. It’s so convoluted that there are stories of the screenwriters sending telegrams to Raymond Chandler (who wrote the novel upon which the film was based) looking for clarification only to be told that Chandler himself didn’t really have a grasp on his own story either. Some thirty years later, Robert Altman decided to adapt another of Raymond Chandler novel featuring the same Phillip Marlow character into a film called The Long Goodbye. That film featured another story of Marlow in the middle of a complex crime scheme, but this time the setting is the 1970s and there’s a whole new tone to the whole thing. Fifteen years later the Coen Brothers get it in their heads to make a Raymond Chandler style mystery of their own, but instead of putting a hardboiled private investigator at the center of their convoluted kidnapping plot they put a stoned slacker called The Dude into the middle of it all and watch him stumble through the whole affair. That movie was of course The Big Lebowski and it’s become something of a cult favorite in the ensuing years.



It’s been over fifteen years since that film and it would seem that the acclaimed filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson has taken up this tradition rather than adapt another Raymond Chandler novel he’s instead decided to tackle a novel written by Thomas Pynchon, a writer who is if anything even more infamous for writing dense and complex literature that’s hard to get a handle on. Like Altman’s The Long Goodbye, the film is set in Los Angeles in the early 70s. Out protagonist is “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), who is not unlike Phillip Marlow in his role as a licensed Private Investigator with clear street smarts but also not unlike The Dude in that he’s a habitually stoned counter-culture figure who sort of stumbles through a complex case largely because of ulterior motives. He’s brought into the film’s central case by his “ex- old lady” Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston), who tells him about a real estate developer named Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts) whose wife Sloane (Serena Scott Thomas) seems to be trying to commit to an insane asylum. Sportello agrees to look into this as a favor and soon finds himself in the middle of a case in which he’ll have to deal with crooks, neo-nazis, cultists, a crime syndicate called the Gold Fang, and a square police detective named Christian F. "Bigfoot" Bjornsen (Josh Brolin) who wants nothing more than to teach this hippie Private Eye a lesson.



Paul Thomas Anderson’s last two films, There Will Be Blood and The Master, both felt like giant statement films. They certainly weren’t humorless films but they were clearly being made by someone who wasn’t messing around anymore and wanted to make major works that would draw people’s attention. Inherent Vice does share certain stylistic similarities to those two films but its subject matter is lighter in a number of ways. “Doc” Sportello is not a complicated enigma of a character the way that a Daniel Plainview, Freddie Quell, and Lancaster Dodd were. You more or less get what he’s about pretty quickly and the movie is more about watching him react to the crazy situation that he finds himself in the midst of. That crazy situation certainly has elements of danger to it, but you’re never really too worried about Sportello. You get the impression that this is an unusually crazy and personal case for him in a number of ways, but you also get the impression that he’s seen some craziness like this before and that he’ll probably see craziness like this again and that he sort of thrives on chaos to some extent. In many ways the film is structured like a comedy but I wouldn’t necessarily call it “laugh out loud funny” even though there are a number of very witty moments and a generally comic aura to a number of the character interactions.



I’ve said that this movie is a bit convoluted, but that is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. The movie has a lot of small characters to keep track of and the conspiracy that Sportello is investigating seems ludicrously complicated. I do think I was more or less able to keep track of it but I’m not sure I was actually supposed to. I think Anderson’s intention was to make a movie that audiences would sort of give up trying to follow and just sort of cruise along with its druggy vibe. Taken at face value I don’t think this story really does amount to much. It’s a fairly episodic film when all is said and done and the movie never really sells the audience on the stakes involved in the case or does much of anything else to really make you care what the outcome is. I also wouldn’t say that the movie’s style is really special enough to carry the film all on its own. Anderson clearly knows how to make a film and he also does a pretty good job of adjusting his usual M.O. to fit this particular story, but he’s not doing anything overly wild with the camera here and in some ways he’s just letting things play out normally. I also can’t say that this works purely as a piece of entertainment either. The movie is certainly well paced, has some funny moments, and is most definitely not boring, but I can’t say it was a hilarious roller-coaster ride either.



I guess the film’s overall worthiness ultimately comes down to whether or not there’s something going on beneath the surface of this story, and that is not entirely clear to me at this time. The film is set in 1970 for a reason and seems to be very concerned with the culture war that’s going on during that period. Sportello and his police detective rival are clearly supposed to act as representatives of the counter-culture and the establishment and their various interactions are perhaps meant to act as a sort of metaphor for the wider conflicts that were coursing through the United States at the time. That’s interesting, but I can’t say that I was really able to pick up on exactly what the film was trying to communicate about this culture war and this only really takes up a certain percentage of the screen time. The film also seems to be largely centered around Sportello’s relationship with Shasta Fay Hepworth. The film starts and ends on this relationship and Hepworth seems to be in the middle of both a key twist and also has a lot to do with why the film is called “Inherent Vice.” And yet, Hepworth is missing for much of the film and I can’t say that I really got to know the character all that well in the limited screen time she has. That title (which refers to a point of insurance law that is said to apply to Hepworth at one point) does seem to be a key clue, but I still don’t really see what the film is trying to say with this relationship either.



I’m trying so hard to analyze this because I have trouble believing that Paul Thomas Anderson and Thomas Pynchon would have created something like this if there wasn’t some point to it all. If anyone has earned a benefit of a doubt it’s probably Anderson, but there are limits to how much credit I’m going to just give the guy on blind faith and on this viewing I’m not seeing any kind of masterpiece in Inherent Vice. That said, there is a lot about the film that makes it worth watching. There are a lot of fun performances in it from people like Josh Brolin, Martin Short, and newcomer Hong Chau which are definitely enjoyable and Anderson’s control of tone and the wit of the screenplay does make it pretty compulsively watchable. One could say that this alone should be hailed as a sort of triumph, nut that brings be back to where I started this review: to The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, and The Big Lebowski. If those three films didn’t already exist I feel like I would have been more impressed with Inherent Vice, but with them in existence it kind of feels a bit redundant to me. I do have something of a nagging feeling that I’m missing something here and I’m definitely going to be giving it another chance at some point, but for the moment I can really only give it a rather modest level of praise.

*** out of Four

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the most bold and uncompromising filmmakers of his generation, and for my money, he’s one of the best. Never allowing himself to fall into an easy groove, Anderson has continuously strived for unique and challenging material leading to his films all being different. In spite of this, the man has done a remarkable job of maintaining a consistently high quality over several projects. I’ve personally loved almost everything he’s made, but I also understand why he has his detractors. His movies, especially his recent outings, are defined by dark content, slower pace, unorthodox characters, general strangeness, and on the whole are not what most audiences would consider “fun”. His newest film, Inherent Vice, would seem to be another turning point for Anderson. The ensemble cast, 1970s setting, and the fast paced and comedic trailers would seem to indicate Anderson had lightened up and made something more fun and accessible, but this isn’t really the case. Inherent Vice may be the most overtly comic of Anderson’s filmography since Boogie Nights, this is still every bit as strange and confounding as The Master.

The film opens in Los Angeles, 1970, at the beach house of one Larry “Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix). In addition to being a hippie and a user of psychedelic drugs, Doc is also a private eye. One evening, Doc is contacted by ex-girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterston), who is now in a relationship with millionaire land developer Mickey Wolfman (Eric Roberts). Shasta informs Doc of a plot from Mickey’s wife, Sloane (Serena Scott Thomas) and her lover to kidnap Mickey, throw him in an insane asylum, and collect his fortune. Drawn in for Shasta, Doc agrees to investigate, which soon sees him sucked into a world of deceit, plots, schemes, and trouble, along with a slew of strange people.

Though that plot description is accurate, it really doesn’t do justice to how complicated the central plot in. It doesn’t take long before the amount of names and secrets revealed begin to blur together and the goals of the film become lost. One can tell this is a deliberate decision too, as Anderson’s script (and I’m assuming Thomas Pynchon’s original novel) throws out a ton of very deliberate red herrings. This confusion is made even more palpable due to the fact that Anderson does not seem particularly interested in analyzing the details of the case, but more about following the experience Doc goes through. This tactic works, but it can also be pretty frustrating. Each individual scene is understandable and actually very entertaining in a vacuum, the bigger picture suffers as the overall goals become muddled. This is made even clearer by the film’s end where the film isn’t really sure where to stop and sort of rambles. There doesn’t seem to be a logical endpoint, which is admirable in that the film doesn’t conform to a standard structure, but there is a lack of finality to the story and I did find myself asking what the point was, in spite of enjoying the journey.

In addition to the story feeling a little aimless, so do the themes. One of the things I love most about Anderson’s films as how thematically stirring I find them to be, but that isn’t really the case with Inherent Vice. It’s not that the film is lacking thematic material, I just don’t find it terribly engaging or important. There is a lot of content regarding the “hippie” vs. “the man”, particularly how, despite what reputation would suggest, “the man” are just as dangerous and unproductive as the hippie, if not more so. Two of the characters that represent established order are detective Christian “Bigfoot” Bjornsen (Josh Brolin) and Dr. Rudy Blatnoyd (Martin Short). The former is shown to be a selfish and violent man prone to outbursts and judgement, while the latter is a drug fueled sex freak with no ambitions beyond that. Doc, meanwhile, may be a hippie who indulges in prominent drug use, but he’s also the only character fueled by a genuine desire to help and does prove to do the right thing in the end. This also ties in to the films total of “inherent vice”, the base desires within people which compel them to act negatively, however the film also seems to argue this inherent vice can be overcome. It’s an interesting reading that I do value, but I don’t think it’s really enough to support the narrative, and the themes aren’t woven into the narrative fully. Of course, I’ve only had one viewing, and it is possible time will give me a greater appreciation for the intellectual subtext to the film, but as of now it hasn’t raised questions in me the same way There Will Be Blood or The Master did.

So far this probably reads like I hated the film, but that really couldn’t be further from the truth. While I do have serious problems with the narrative, I’d be lying if I said the film didn’t really entertain me. First and foremost, while Inherent Vice may not be the comedy it’s advertised to be, there are moments of hilarity throughout. Josh Brolin is particular is a laugh riot as the rigid and uber serious detective Big Foot, and he uses his imposing size, aggression, and delivery to great comedic effect. Brolin comes very close to stealing the film and is a major highlight. Joaquin Phoenix also finds comedic nuance in his character of Doc, with little things he does being quite funny. Phoenix builds Doc as a very complete character who is also very likable. There is a real physicality to the performance and Phoenix embodies it all quite well. Beyond Phoenix and Brolin, the movie is populated by a plethora of recognizable (or at least semi recognizable) actors like Reese Witherspoon, Benecio del Toro, Martin Short, Eric Roberts, Serena Scott Thomas, Michael K. Williams, Jena Malone, Owen Wilson, and a ton of other lesser known actors. Each seems perfectly cast and bring a little something to the part. Additionally, up and comer Katherine Waterston is great as a naïve character who is almost a femme fatale but not quite, and she plays off a veteran like Phoenix quite well.

Anderson himself adds a lot to the movie as well. From a comedic standpoint, the man is able to create some very strong visual comedy, whether it be small details like signs or minor action in the background, to full on comedy set-pieces, he puts together some great stuff. Additionally, the movie looks great. Anderson is again shooting on real film and he and cinematographer Robert Elswit give the film a real sense of grain and dirt. This is carried over to the look of the characters as well, who quite often like dirty, with the appearance of grime, sweat, or smeared make-up. Despite this, the cinematography can also be quite beautiful at points with smoke, fog, and sunlight affecting the image in just the right ways. Anderson continuously captures great compositions and I’ve always loved the way he moves his camera. The costumes are also very period appropriate and despite the over the top nature of a lot of these styles, it still feels a restrained and appropriate choice. I also really liked the music here, both Johnny Greenwood’s trance like and hypnotic score, as well as the soundtrack. The typical choice here would be to fill the film with 70s rock and stoner music, but the songs are a lot more relaxed and folk based. I was particularly impressed by an inspired use of Neil Young during one of the film’s more tender scenes.

On the whole, I’m not quite sure what to make of Inherent Vice. I don’t find its thematic content particularly stirring and the narrative definitely has problems. That said, I was thoroughly entertained by damn near every scene and I continue to be enamoured with Anderson’s talents as a director. This is a very well shot film, with great music, full of colourful characters brought to life by top-notch actors, and on top of that the movie got some great laughs out of me. And yet, something still feels like its missing. Maybe I need more time to reflect on it, or perhaps the grand narratives of Magnolia, There Will Be Blood, and The Master had be wanting for something different? Or maybe this truly is one of Anderson’s lesser works? I’m not quite sure, and in truth this is a film I really want to revisit in time. As of now I’ll say this; Inherent Vice is not another masterpiece from Paul Thomas Anderson, but it is fun, and sometimes I like to have fun.

B

Have you read Bleeding Edge? Personally, I think that one would make an awesome movie.

Bleeding Edge, like Inherent Vice, is pretty accessible and a lot of fun. It's "light reading" when compared to the rest of his bibliography. Gravity's Rainbow is a tough one to start with, honestly. Usually, I recommend V. or The Crying of Lot 49. Both are good introductions to his style. They also are all connected in small ways--you'll see what I mean. I'll be tackling Against the Day next. That's one I've been putting off.

I watched Inherent Vice last night. I enjoyed it a lot. Even though it doesn't capture the novel perfectly, it does do it justice. Most importantly, the spirit of the novel is kept intact. There's a weird melancholy and a mood of impending "doom" for the characters. They don't know the world is going to change pretty wildly in the near future. They live in a fantasy of love and drugs, while the true nature is conspiratorial, grim, and paranoid.