Inherent Vice (Anderson, 2014) wheels its way into one's unconscious by presenting a sprawling 1970 Los Angeles cityscape, a memorable conversation between Doc (Joaquin Phoenix) and Wolfmann mid-way through the film, and a long take in Doc's place once he is reunited with Shasta. Yet it does so slowly. Anderson seems to miss the opportunity to fully punctuate its episodic structure with music and b-films as Thomas Pynchon does in his book, and its voice-over narration is at times free from the humor, critique, and psychedelic bizarre-ity of the novel, but the movie is successful by steering clear of an array of gimmicks such as cliché first-person drug-trip point-of-view shots. In the book Doc gets to a point where it's not really who he is after, but what he is after. It's a straightforward distinction that the film pleasantly and consistently gets right.
Inherent Vice is a breath of fresh air after the oppressiveness of Paul Thomas Anderson’s last, The Master and the gloomy juggernaut of There Will Be Blood.
Inherent Vice is a breath of fresh air after the oppressiveness of Paul Thomas Anderson’s last, The Master and the gloomy juggernaut of There Will Be Blood.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment -- agreed!
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