The source material for Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice just might make it his most ambitious film. It is based on a 2009 novel by Thomas Pynchon, the reclusive postmodernist known for books that are beloved and baffling in equal measure. Unlike Pynchon’s masterpiece Gravity’s Rainbow, Inherent Vice is somewhat accessible because it ostensibly follows the structure of a detective novel, tapping into familiar themes like the clash between counterculture and the inherent fascism of the status quo. But as a film adaptation, Anderson must contend with Pynchon’s discursions and elliptical storytelling, which unfortunately, the director is not quite up to the task. Anderson’s film has a particular vibe and aesthetic, yet vibes alone are not enough.
Anderson clearly thinks his film is in conversation with classics like Chinatown, The Big Lebowski and Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye. His protagonist, Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), is cut from the same cloth as the would-be detective heroes of those films. Doc is not particularly good at his job: always stoned, he makes connections only because everyone he meets is too generous with their secrets. Though this might be Doc’s ace-in-the-hole—he disarms people into divulging more information than they should—Phoenix’s performance never suggests his character is thinking that far ahead.
Most of Inherent Vice is Doc wandering through a haze of 1970 Los Angeles. He encounters a strange mix of hippies, sex workers, white supremacists and various strains of the wealthy and corrupt. His noteworthy acquaintances include his elusive ex-girlfriend Shasta (Katherine Waterston) and the strait-laced cop “Bigfoot” Bjornsen (Josh Brolin). They all tolerate Doc because they either need to manipulate him or use him as a patsy.
The specifics of the plot are incidental. Pynchon—although perhaps not Anderson—would be first to admit this. Doc is less of a detective and more of an observer. The hangover of the 1960s still lingers in the air, and it has not yet given way to post-Watergate cynicism and paranoia. All the characters in Anderson’s impressive ensemble deal with this moment in different ways, and so the film unfolds more like strung-together vignettes, rather than anything with a destination.
Pynchon’s dialogue, usually dripping with allusion and irony, does not exactly sing when spoken aloud. You can sort of tell this by simply looking at the characters’ names. Sauncho Smilax, Clancy Charlock and Rudy Blatnoyd sound funny in your head, and yet actors sound mealy-mouthed saying them out loud. The musician Joanna Newsom plays Sortilège who is also the film’s narrator, but her interpretation of the prose never once suggests Pynchon’s gift for language. Movies inherently make the page more literal, and so along similar lines, the frequent sex scenes are another challenge Anderson cannot overcome. His approach is straightforward, whereas Pynchon’s reliance on our imagination means the sex is erotic, not lurid. Sometimes scenes can seem embarrassing for an actor, like when Hong Chau plays a plucky sex worker who speaks with such frankness that she could even make a character from Boogie Nights blush.
It’s no surprise that the best qualities of Anderson’s films have nothing to do with actors, plot or dialogue. The soundtrack for Inherent Vice is great, full of unexpected choices like an early Can needle drop, however anachronistic, that suggest Doc is cooler than anyone gives him credit for. Together with cinematographer Robert Elswit, Anderson captures an agreeable, tactile haze of Los Angeles—a mix of sunlight and smoke that is instantly evocative. Many sequences are a joy to behold because, having shot on film, there is a beauty to the image that eludes many of Anderson’s contemporaries. Anderson also retains his gift for camera placement, framing a shot or sequence in non-traditional ways that, nonetheless, are right for a scene. The closest Inherent Vice gets to being suspenseful is during the scene where a handcuffed Doc must escape from a small room, only to take out thugs with a toilet lid and a pistol. The scene is exciting, just not in a conventional way, because Anderson keeps enough distance from Doc so that he appears both canny and bumbling.
Although it certainly has its defenders, Inherent Vice might be Anderson’s least successful film. It has no standout scenes or characters, and while it looks great, it meanders through a plot that no one—perhaps not even Pynchon—could coherently summarize. Still, Anderson’s worst is still better than the vast majority of films currently out there. More importantly, it can be instructive to see a director’s nadir just so you can better understand their successes. Inherent Vice has hallmarks of Anderson’s best films—formal daring, curiosity about human eccentricity, an uncanny ability to capture a historical moment and characters who seemingly operate with free will—but those elements require narrative sinew that Anderson ignores, figuring that Pynchon’s novel has everything he needs. Or maybe he just figures Inherent Vice’s target audience will consist of stoned home viewers for whom the sinew could simply never be the point.
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