The Last Supper-aping shot from a pizza party scene
#Inherent vice preview tv#
When the subject of his surveillance himself disappears, Sportello is drawn deeper into a convoluted kidnapping plot and his misadventures bring him into contact with a number of colourful characters, including old nemesis Christian ‘Bigfoot’ Bjornsen (Josh Brolin), a deeply conservative, borderline fascist detective who moonlights as a TV show bit-part player and infomercial host. Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) to begin investigating his old lover’s current boyfriend – a powerful property magnate with links to a far right group masquerading as a security team. Its 1970 Los Angeles and things aren’t too groovy when the sudden mysterious departure of ex-girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterston) spurs The Dude-like P.I. But it’s Anderson’s narrative swagger and his loving attention to detail which anchors the film, bringing all these disparate elements together. Admittedly, an absurdist thriller with elements of noir, boisterous comedy is a tough sell.
Unfortunately, Inherent Vice fizzled at the US box office, despite a relatively modest $20m budget. Yet it’s also delicately and subtly infused with dream-like atmosphere found in Punch-Drunk Love. Just like There Will Be Blood and The Master. Anderson brings us another batch of characters here, but he somehow manages to let them ramble on a little too long for comfort.Paul Thomas Anderson gleefully enigmatic 2014 adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s novel Inherent Vice chronicles the corrosive underbelly of American culture. In his previous films, Anderson showed a knack for finding absorbing characters and stories in less obvious places the porn industry, the oil trade, a post-war cult. There’s also a sense that, as Inherent Vice rolls to a close, the story at the core of all the conspiracy is actually quite a simple one, obfuscated by an opening scene that is likely to confuse many audience members with its mumbled dialogue and liable to leave them lagging behind the plot for the rest of the movie. The first half is often riotously funny and as intriguing as it is confounding, but as the two-hour mark goes by and the supporting characters are still being introduced, sub-plot fatigue begins to set in. At 148 minutes, Inherent Vice is by no means a short film, and even when compared to There Will Be Blood or The Master, the film feels inordinately long, particularly towards its second half.Įven accepting that this is a purposefully convoluted tale, there are stretches here that feel laboured or simply over-played. In all respects, Inherent Vice is as astutely crafted and attentively detailed as the director’s previous films, even though it is, for the most part, the purest comedy he’s made since Punch Drunk Love.Īt the same time, there’s a sense that Anderson’s perhaps a little too in love with the matted weave of Pynchon’s novel. There’s a captivating melody to the drawled voice-over, matched by the eclectic score of Anderson’s collaborator on The Master and There Will Be Blood, Jonny Greenwood. Many of Inherent Vice’s finest moments spring from Phoenix’s befuddled reactions, or the way flashes of pure intelligence cut through the dusty curtains of his addiction. It must be said that certain moments here are as spot-on, laugh-out-loud funny as those in Boogie Nights many of them are thanks to Phoenix’s expert timing, which is both natural and precisely judged. Anderson has a specific way of setting and letting scenes play out, a jazzy, languid style that is absolutely of a piece with the characters’ rambling, free-wheeling speech.
A refugee from the 1960s, Doc seems to have stumbled into his vocation entirely by accident, and even as he struggles to hold onto all the plot threads, one thing constantly motivates him: the whereabouts of Shasta, whom he evidently still loves.Īlthough adapted from the novel by Thomas Pynchon, the hand of the director behind such lengthy period dramas as Boogie Nights, Magnolia, There Will Be Blood and The Master is all over Inherent Vice. With his mutton-chop sideburns, scraggy hair and bloodshot, perpetually bewildered eyes, he plays one of the unlikeliest would-be detectives since Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski.
Among the extended cast, which also includes Michael K Williams, Owen Wilson, Benicio Del Toro and a characteristically quirky Martin Short, Phoenix remains the lynchpin.
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