Inherent Vice

Inherent Vice is a movie under the influence. It’s high on the aesthetic of 1970s cinema, the source material of Thomas Pynchon’s novel and writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s affectionate but clear-eyed take on the story’s woozy, stoned California milieu and colourful gallery of characters.

The plot meanders from place to place, situation to situation; people drop in and out of the narrative, occasionally providing some necessary nugget of information or insight but more often just adding a chunk of texture. It’s kind of a mess. I loved it.

It’s not so much a movie with a straightforward storyline as it is a concept album, with its tracks connected (sometimes loosely, but the connective tissue is there) by the central theme and ideas, mainly ideals and aspirations bumping up against and being worn down by progress and power structures, something that Anderson has explored in various ways throughout his career.

In this case, it’s the hippie lifestyle of the late ‘60s, personified by private eye Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), who’s drawn into a complex conspiracy when old flame Shasta (Katherine Waterston) turns up on his doorstep spinning a tale about a plot being hatched against her wealthy new lover. Doc’s moral compass and deductive faculties are rendered a tad fuzzy by the dope smoke he inhales almost as regularly as oxygen but they’re still operational and he delves into a mystery involving drug-dealers, neo-Nazis, missing persons, medical malpractice and a malevolent something-or-other (could be a cartel, could be a boat) called ‘The Golden Fang’.

My advice? Don’t try too hard to make head or tail of what’s going on; just go with Anderson’s flow and enjoy what happens as it happens, whether it’s one-scene appearances by some terrific actors (the standout for mine: Eric Roberts, seriously), Jonny Greenwood’s beautiful score (situated right at the point where lush Hollywood orchestration met something looser and groovier) or the hilarious antagonism between Phoenix’s Doc and Josh Brolin’s ill-tempered cop ‘Bigfoot’ Bjornsen (I could watch a whole movie just about these two sparring).