Inherent Vice

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of my favorite filmmakers, but he has increasingly followed his own muse (even when adapting other people's material), and seemingly takes a view of "if the audience can follow along and get into my groove, fine.  If not, that's fine, too."  Long story short, I was on board with Anderson's adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's cock-eyed private eye tale.  

Joaquin Phoenix plays Larry "Doc" Sportello, a beach bum/stoner/private detective, still carrying a flame for his ex, when she walks through his door one night.  Shasta Fay (Katherine Waterston) had taken up with a rich real estate magnate, Michael Wolfman (Eric Roberts), and now fears his wife and other cohorts are scheming to get Wolfman committed to an institution, because he has now embraced the hippie lifestyle, and wants to give away his newest housing development "to the people."  

Doc takes on the case (how could he say no to Shasta) and proceeds to go down the rabbit hole of Nazi bikers, Oriental massage parlor workers, missing musicians, and crazy dentists (Martin Short memorably playing one memorable tooth doctor.)  

A lot of folks have had a hard time following the plot, and others saying that you aren't even supposed to follow the plot, that it is beside the point.  I actually don't think this view is valid.  It is a complex story, that ambles and lurches into all kinds of strange alley ways, and Anderson does his best to be circumspect and spare when it suits him, but the plot does make "sense."  

Anchored by Phoenix's perpetually laid back (and very stoned) protagonist, Vice floats by on an almost psychedelic wave of early 70's paranoia.  At heart the film is really about the "squares" versus the hippies, and how the Establishment hates the hippies, but also envies them, and how the Establishment co-opted the things they liked (free love, recreational drugs) and put their own spin on them, at the same time they tried to deny the parts of the hippie lifestyle that don't make anybody any money! 

In some ways, the film (and I assume this bent comes from Pynchon's novel) is a funny, wry, but deep down kind of angry and sad look at the Powers That Be.  One of the most interesting angles is how the drug culture gets turned into a vertically integrated Big Business, involving all kinds of unlikely types.  But mostly, the film is Doc bumping into all sorts of odd folks, including a completely wonderful Josh Brolin as Doc's cop frenemy "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, whom all by himself, encapsulates the push and pull of societal forces at work.  

It is hard to recommend a movie as shaggy and lengthy as this one, but for me, the time spent was very enjoyable, and flew by.  For my money, another winner from a director who is yet to make a bad film.  

Grade: A