Review of Inherent Vice (2014) by Dan A — 10 Feb 2015

Alright, I won't lie, I'm totally gay for Paul Thomas Anderson. He's my favourite filmmaker working today and pretty much everything he makes hits my sweet spot. I mean, if Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood were people I'd fuck them every night. Simple as that. However, even I can admit that Inherent Vice falls quite a bit short of those previously set high expectations.

There are a lot of good things in this film. The production values, as with all PTA movies, are great. The cinematography is intimate and aesthetically pleasing, the beach setting and the end of the 60's time frame really puts you right there (Mainly because everyone is drinking heavily and smoking dope) and the acting is, as always, very well done.

Unfortunately, everything else is just a massive clusterfuck that makes little to no sense. Before I saw this, the biggest criticism I heard from people was "it's hard to follow". Turns out that's a bit of an understatement. There are so many entering and exiting characters, sub-plots and things that are mentioned but not seen, that as an audience member you're constantly playing catch up. This is the kiss of death for the film. When you constantly have to ask "Wait, who? What? What's happening?" it means that the story isn't coherent whatsoever. Maybe the excuse for this is the main character, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is confused by everything too, but that only works if the rest of the film turns into an ever unraveling farce, and unfortunately there aren't enough wacky occurrences or ridiculous humour in the film to give any credit to that explanation.

Maybe it's because this is based on a novel, and PTA didn't have the tight control over the story as he usually does with his original writing. Whatever, this is disappointing.