Review of Inherent Vice (2014) by Mark M — 16 Mar 2015

Inherent Vice is best savored by fans of Thomas Pynchon's novel of the same name and fans of Paul Thomas Anderson's style of filmmaking; for everyone else, the movie will prove to be an unsettling trip into a substance-induced state of incoherence and slurry gibberish.

A good portion of the movie involves Doc going from one scene where characters are talking about a character, and then going into another 'room' where the characters that there are talking now talking about another character; its circular, manic structure is an emulation of the human brain under the influence of hallucinogens. There truly isn't a plot; there isn't even an actual beginning, middle, or an end to Inherent Vice. Events simply happen. Characters drop in and out of the narrative at a moment's whim. First, second and third acts are virtually non-existent. Everything is structured as though a paranoid hippie is projecting his thoughts directly to the big screen as both Sportello and the narrative turn wild, manic and incomprehensible.

Paul Thomas Anderson's exercise in repetition and incoherence is largely due to how close his adapted screenplay adheres to the source material, which itself, is largely an intentional convoluted mess. Inherent Vice wouldn't make sense, whether it is watched sober or blazed, and it shouldn't be done any other way. The draw of the movie isn't its narrative, but more of its characters and tone of the '70s, both being captured impeccably by Anderson's direction, Jonny Greenwood's score and Robert Elswit's cinematography. With the performances of Joaquin Phoenix's slurring and flailing punches as Doc Sportello, and his chemistry with the other actors and their characters, particularly Josh Brolin's Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, it doesn't get as '70s as Inherent Vice under the hands of Paul Thomas Anderson.