Inherent Vice (2014)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Inherent Vice (2014) – P. T. Anderson

After seeing Inherent Vice, I feel fully deranged -- and I don’t think this is because I haven’t read the Pynchon novel.  True, there are a lot of characters and details cluttering the film. But I think, more accurately, Paul Thomas Anderson’s unreliable protagonist cum narrator Joaquin Phoenix (as “Doc” Sportello) has simply softened my brain with his mammoth drug-taking and his confused mystery-solving.  Or maybe it’s just me who got confused – despite Doc’s continually expressed befuddlement (Phoenix is a master of the reaction shot), he still solves the mystery.  Maybe with the help of “Bigfoot” Bjornsen (played by Josh Brolin), the LAPD cop who is his foil and antagonist, and maybe just because things happened to work out that way. Did I mentioned this is a comedy? Although there were only a few laugh out loud guffaws in the theatre, I did find myself chortling at Anderson’s well staged routines.  Not all of this is a big drug reference, there’s also a dash of ribaldry, some Owen Wilson, hidden games to play (spot the celebrity relative), and the grooviest 1970 era sets, hair, cultural memes, music, and L.A. vibes that you could ever care to meet.  The film may seem even better when more fully digested as the claustrophobic framing and artful misdirection (camera tight in on close ups, heads cut off from the frame) dissolves and all that is left is the schematic private-eye frame (also used expertly by Altman earlier) and the various elements of the film that directly relate to it, with anecdotes and asides, such as a crazy Martin Short, floating away in the haze. Or maybe there are no asides and everything is relevant – you be the judge, I might just be paranoid or hallucinating.