Inherent Vice (2014)

[K1stpierre]

Discuss

[TalismanRing]

Finally a topic.  Thanks!

 

After the reviews I went in thinking it was going to be some over ambitious trippy convoluted mess but though it's sprawling and a bit freewheeling I found it surprisingly easy to follow - more Maltese Falcon than The Big Sleep.  Not only does it take place in the 70s, it feels like it could have been made in the 70s.  I loved it and thought Phoenix gave one of the best performances of the year - laid back, charming, intelligent, non judgmental, partially wasted and very humane. Brolin is also a riot as Detective Bigfoot.  It's another film this year with an excellent ensemble.  

 

I saw this movie almost back to back with Birdman and while they both deal with seedy and ethically questionable characters (IV on both sides of the law) in a satirical manner I never felt like PTA disliked or had contempt for his characters as Inarritu did so it was by far a more fun movie to watch even if it wasn't as technically tight a movie.

 

A-

Edited January 21, 2015 by TalismanRing

[GeneralKong]

As a fan of classic detective mysteries (The Maltese Falcon was a favorite of mine growing up) and PTA, I absolutely loved it. The deliberately convoluted nature of the film will definitely throw a lot of people off, including PTA followers. However, viewers who are patient will end up ultimately feeling rewarded. 

 

A

Edited January 24, 2015 by GeneralKong

[BadAtGender]

My brother was onscreen for all of about three seconds.

 

Those were, perhaps, the most enjoyable three seconds I've ever had watching a film.

 

5/5

[Jake Gittes]

Still unsure what to think about this. The labyrinthine plot doesn't bother me and obviously should be this way, but I was thrown off by how little PTA does cinematically. I wasn't expecting a lush period piece on the level of Boogie Nights, but a lot of the diaogue scenes here seem downright lazy - all boring medium shots, people being framed against simple white walls... I know PTA isn't a lazy filmmaker, and he himself shows what he's capable of in that wonderful flashback with Shasta, so I can only conclude the visual blandness is his way to convey the death of the '60s and counterculture, which the film is essentially about. Even then, there are sizable chunks of the film which simply aren't interesting to watch from a cinematic standpoint, which wasn't a problem with, say, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to which Inherent Vice is indebted in its core ideas.

 

There's also much less comedy - and specifically visual comedy - in the film than PTA himself has promised, with most of the laughs - and they are more often just chuckles - coming from the interactions' absurdity.

 

All that said, Phoenix, Brolin and Waterston all do first-rate work here, and the soundtrack choices are inspired. More importantly, the whole thing still more or less accomplishes the goal of feeling like one big smoky haze of a movie, which led me to wonder if it was just the dialogue and the performances and the editing, and whether Anderson even needed any more overt eccentricity and visual flourishes to add to the feeling. So that's a dilemma I hope a second viewing will solve. Another dilemma is that while I found all the characters enjoyable and was glad to hang out with them, I recognized by the end that I didn't really care about what happened to any of them, which made me wonder if I already got everything PTA is saying here (that the death of the '60s was basically the result of a vast conspiracy linking everyone to everyone else and turning the cops against the hippies) and a second viewing wouldn't reveal anything new. 

 

Anyway, it's a fascinating film, but for now not one of my favorites of 2014 or one of my PTA favorites. 

[luna]

unbearably tedious waste of time.

 

2.4/10

[TStechnij]

I was just thinking about this movie.

It is a film that I actually like more and more when I think back on seeing it.

Something that I thought was ingenious was how ironic the soundtrack was. All of the song lyrics were either satirizing the situations or somehow capturing the feeling but saying the exact opposite of what was happening in the plot. I will have to watch again to get examples, but I thought it was so cleverly done.

The shot of Shasta laying across Doc as they are sleeping together, with the completely still camera is so subtly sexy and just a really memorable PTA moment.

Damn. PTA is incredible. This will never beat The Master for me, as I think that might be one of the best movies ever, but it is so comparable to his other works in sheet quality.

Just a fun ride that is exhausting and rewarding. Needs more than one view, so I'm renting it real soon.

[Goffe]

Way too uninteresting for me to overlook its convoluted script or try to make sense out of it. This thing felt like 5 hours long. 45/100

 

Paul Thomas Anderson Marathon
There Will be Blood 100/100
Magnolia 100/100
Punch-Drunk Love 100/100
The Master 80/100 (need to see it again)

Hard Eight 70/100
Boogie Nights 70/100

Inherent Vice 45/100

Edited December 20, 2015 by Goffe