Review: Inherent Vice

Set at the beginning of the 70s, Joaquin Phoenix plays hippie private eye Doc, who at the request of his ex-girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterston) takes a look into the disappearance of her married rich lover (Eric Roberts), a real estate developer. The investigation, possibly not helped by Doc’s fondness for weed, takes on a labyrinthine amount of characters and twists and turns involving supposedly dead musicians (Owen Wilson), coke-head dentists (Martin Short), teenage runaways (“Pretty Little Liars” alum Sasha Pieterse in an unfortunate “Big Lebowski” rip-off character), and bizzaro ‘massage parlour’ attendants (Hong Chau). Also turning up are Doc’s occasional lover and Deputy DA (Reese Witherspoon), Doc’s lawyer pal (Benicio Del Toro), a black radical (the ubiquitous Michael K. Williams), and most prominently, a seriously angry police detective (Josh Brolin), a square-jawed cop who hates hippies…and Doc especially. Jena Malone plays the ex-druggie ‘widow’ of the supposedly dead Wilson (a case that does indeed somehow tie into the main mystery), whilst Joanna Newsom (apparently a singer, never heard of her) appears periodically as the film’s rather unnecessary narrator and Martin Donovan plays Pieterse’s creepy father (Donovan playing a creep? Wonders will never cease!).

 

Although far from the best film from Paul Thomas Anderson (“Magnolia”, “Punch-Drunk Love”, “There Will Be Blood” and “The Master” are all superior), this 2014 adaptation of the Thomas Pynchon novel sure is something. I’m not entirely certain it exactly appeals to my cinematic sensibilities, but I bet it’s someone’s favourite film of the year. It’s genuinely very funny at times, but also a bit over my head, plot-wise. Sure, it’s likely an intentional parody of the impenetrable mystery of “The Big Sleep”, but I still felt slightly removed from it.

 

The cavalcade of stars who pop up almost subliminally are a mixed bag, with some nonetheless standing out. Joaquin Phoenix proves to be a most unusual chameleon where he always looks like himself, yet plays characters who are a million miles apart and you never find yourself noticing the actor so much as the character. He works really well with uber-intense Josh Brolin, who I swear was born for 50s noir/crime films. Owen Wilson is also genuinely good here, showing as he did in the underrated “The Minus Man” that he can genuinely act. Others are good but not in the film enough, such as Reese Witherspoon (looking like 60s-era Jane Fonda), Michael K. Williams, Benicio Del Toro, and as a drug counsellor who teaches kids ‘about sensible drug use’, the underrated Jena Malone. She tells a funny, disgusting story you’d swear came out of a Kevin Smith film or something. An out-of-his mind Martin Short is delightfully sleazy and unexpected casting, competing with an actress named Hong Chau for most hilarious scene-stealer in the whole film. I think Short probably edges her out, but boy is it close.

 

The best thing in the entire film is the seriously lewd costume and set design, it’s brilliant (It’s nice that the attention to detail also extends to pubic hair, I might add). It’s also the only film you’ll see where a Ouija board message leads to a drugs score. Funny. Good use of Neil Young on the soundtrack, too and there seems to be a whole slew of genre influences spread throughout (Hunter S. Thompson, “The Big Lebowski”, “Harper”, possibly even “The French Connection II”). There’s some terrific performances from the amazingly versatile Joaquin Phoenix, and a supremely sleazy Martin Short in particular, but it’s the kind of film that I found myself enjoying aspects of very much, but rather mild on the whole. With fewer characters and more character depth (I’d have removed the extraneous character played by a mannered Joanna Newsom for a start), the film definitely would’ve been more appealing to me, but I understand that it probably wasn’t going for coherence. It’s not that kind of film, and perhaps it will play even better on subsequent viewings.

 

Loopy as fuck, it’ll definitely divide audiences. Personally, I think it meanders a bit, and the Coen Brothers did this sort of thing better in “The Big Lebowski”. I still kinda liked this one...sort of. How’s that for a recommendation?

 

Rating: B-