Review of Inherent Vice (2014) by Tom S — 15 Mar 2015

If our greatest living filmmaker can't successfully adapt Pynchon, I doubt anyone can. Inherent Vice is as singular an experience as anything that came out in 2014, and the craft is a spectacle, but it feels more like an dying theme park than a necessary work of art; a safari through the end of an era filled with characters who can't make much of a living there.

It's such a confounding and difficult film that it's almost impossible to criticize, because you don't know what to criticize other than that it just doesn't work. You get the idea, as always, that Anderson knew exactly what he was doing.

Yet, when you read about the production, you find that he had no idea what he was doing and just worked with the actors until a scene "felt right." Alas, the finished work itself does not "feel right" - perhaps because we can't define just what we're supposed to feel.

Laughter? Sadness? Out of this world? (Plus, it's hard to find much pleasure in watching - for scenes on end - Doc Sportello try to untangle a conspiracy that might not exist and that you can hardly witness the effects of).

In his aimless approach, Anderson apparently seeks to recreate a drug trip. In that, he succeeded. I just can't say it was a very good one.