I've been fascinated by the evolution Anderson's career has taken. He's long been my favorite filmmaker, but the Anderson I fell in love with; the guy who gave us Altman-esque ensembles like Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Punch Drunk Love has slowly disappeared. His films are have always been small of scope but thematically sprawling, but with There will Be Blood and The Master he's taken on a more commanding approach, emphasizing mood and a powerful lead performance. Inherent Vice fits somewhere in the middle, but the tone is definitely loopier than anything Anderson has done before, which is a good thing.
Pynchon's novel is basically a jab at the soft underbelly of the hippie generation's waning moments; when those who had been "against the man" were now being co-opted willingly by "the man". It was a darker time than many realized; perhaps too high or stoned to notice how the world was changing around them. There's artificiality to most of the wild denizens of Inherent Vice, with the exception of drugged-out detective Larry "Doc" Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), who is like our goofy guide through one long acid trip. Whether you go in with your brain turned off or on auto-pilot, the plot is never going to coalesce into anything that makes a lick of sense. The lack of cohesion could prove as frustrating as a friend who messes up the "puff puff pass" rotation, but those who are in the right mood will find it a pretty groovy ride.
So where to start? Sportello, sporting a mean set of mutton chops, is a pretty laid back cat even after he gets hired by an ex-girlfriend (Katherine Waterston in an unforgettably alluring performance) to find her missing billionaire boyfriend (Eric Roberts). It isn't long before she goes missing, too, and soon Sportello is up to his eyeballs in weirdoes. There's a sell-out musician (Owen Wilson), an oddball dentist (Martin Short), mysterious organizations of ill-repute, and Sportello's flat-topped rule-breaking enemy Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen (Josh Brolin). Each encounter leads him from the beaches of L.A. to the seedy side of the counterculture generation, revealing a dark conspiracy connected to the upper echelons of society. The Man!!!
Inherent Vice is too incoherent and overlong to be completely satisfying, but it's Anderson's handling of the atmosphere that is just right. Like a mix of The Big Lebowski and The Big Sleep, its charm lies in being both ridiculous and convoluted. The constantly swerving plot and endless red herrings pile up to the point that you can't help but laugh. And right in the middle of it all is Phoenix's performance as the perpetually-dazed Sportello. He's not quite a cartoon character, but there are times when he comes off like an outcast from Airplane! or Top Secret! Phoenix never quite goes over the line, though, and Sportello remains a fascinating character throughout, one who is just level-headed enough to see how the world is changing for the worse. While the star-studded cast also includes Reese Witherspoon, Benicia Del Toro, Jena Malone, and Maya Rudolph, most of them are pretty forgettable. On the other hand, Waterston leaves a seductive imprint in her few appearances that lingers throughout, while Brolin is hilarious as the comically rigid Bjornsen.Coupled with Jonny Greenwood's diverse, era authentic score and Robert Elswit's crisp cinematography, the film ranks as one of Anderson's most beautiful and well-staged. Inherent Vice demands that you be in a certain kind of trippy mood to fully embrace it, and some will simply never be in the right head space for that. Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Posts
