Movie Review: Inherent Vice

Is the movie better than the book? As Inherent Vice’s intoxicated private detective Doc Sportello would say, “Gee, I don’t know.”

For those who felt The Big Lebowski was just too darned focused and streamlined comes Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson’s take on Thomas Pynchon’s goofy, foggy, hippy-dippy 2009 novel. (It’s the first ever adaptation of Pynchon's work to date, which will come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever fought and failed to unravel the Long Island author’s tomes. No judgment.)

Set at the close of the 1960s – in synchronicity with Mad Men’s Don Draper driving his Heinz-mobile into the great beyond – it follows a perpetually spaced P.I. on the Californian coast as he tumbles deeper and deeper into a very shaggy case indeed.

Of course, he’s played by Joaquin Phoenix.

Phoenix’s uncommon ability to vacillate between adorable and repellent on-screen this past decade has cemented his status as the best actor going. Nonetheless, if I was casting a role that required a performer to play both dazed and desperate, his head shot alone would seal the deal.

Anyways. Doc – the gumshoe who prefers no shoes at all - is sucked into his latest case by “ex-old lady” Shasta Fey (Katherine Waterston), a femme-fatale in a surfer’s singlet. She suspects her current squeeze, recently-enlightened real estate mogul Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts), has been locked up in an insane asylum by his wife, and it’d be just swell if Doc could confirm or deny. Doc takes the case, the rube, eventually finding himself on the bad side of Mrs. Wolfmann's potential co-conspirators from within the Aryan Brotherhood, the Black Guerrillas, the Chinese cartel and even the American government. Poor Doc. The guy just wanted to impress his ex-old lady.

Pynchon’s Inherent Vice – the only text by the legendary author I’ve read, though I’ve read it twice, if that counts for extra – is a cloudy, comic cocktail, equal parts Robert Altman and The Naked Gun. However, it’s not without a dash of bitters. Pynchon details with increasing despair the death of the great ‘60s dream; its murder, really, slaughtered as it was in a bloody, paranoid, Charles Mansonic frenzy by squares and hippies alike.

That’s why Anderson is such a good fit for the material (and not simply because his Boogie Nights and Magnolia similarly chronicled Los Angeleno malaise and featured meticulously-coiffed ensemble casts). What was There Will Be Blood – his 2007 tone poem – if not an exploration of California’s initial corruption by oil and greed? Likewise, in the world of Inherent Vice, peace, love and understanding have all been monetised and weaponised. To labour the point, Doc’s acceptance of payment in good vibes and I.O.U.’s make him even more of an outsider than Barry Egan in Punch-Drunk Love. In more ways than one, Anderson has trod this ground before. Barefoot even.

As Doc continues his investigation, not just into Wolfmann’s whereabouts but also into the fate of the fading hippy dream, he crosses a civil liberties-stomping cop named Bigfoot Bjornson (Josh Brolin), a back-stabbing girlfriend in the D.A.’s office (Reese Witherspoon), a turncoat saxophonist working for both the government and the underground rebellion (Owen Wilson) and a demented dentist with too many peculiar predilections to list (Martin Short). As Joanna Newsom’s delightfully intrusive narrator and spiritual guide Sortilège puts it in the trailer: “Good luck, Doc.”

Back when it was a book – though I suppose it still is – you could skip back and forth between pages to ensure you weren’t missing a beat. This was especially helpful when tracking Pynchon’s endless stream of daffy names, Puck Beaverton and Rudy Blatnoyd chief among them.

The cinema doesn’t allow for the luxury of rewinding. Yet, getting trapped in the fog – or is that smoke? – of Inherent Vice is one of its pleasures. It’ll demand multiple viewings, which will only help uncover more of Anderson’s stealthy in-jokes and Airplane-esque sight gags; more time to luxuriate in the cast’s bonkers performances, particularly Brolin’s, which at times feels like the cinematic equivalent of dinner with Marlon Brando: there’s nothing left on the table.

Inherent Vice is an offbeat, unhinged throwback to films noir, and also Anderson’s loosest feature, maybe ever. His camera – operated by old collaborator Robert Elswit for the first time since Blood – may still be meticulously positioned for intense, conversational long takes, yet more often than not it's off the tripod; handheld and inquiring more deeply into character’s faces.

Movies don’t need to be better than the book. They only need to be the best movie version of the book. And Inherent Vice is that. It is ‘minor Anderson’ in the same way that it is ‘minor Pynchon’: who in their right mind would complain about either?

4.5/5

In cinemas March 12, 2015. Rated MA15+ for strong sex scenes, frequent drug use and nudity.