Review: Go with the flow of Inherent Vice
Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest is deadpan noir with a twist – and a nicely understated performance by Joaquin Phoenix.
Inherent Vice
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson. Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Katherine Waterson. Cinematography: Robert Elswit. Music: Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead).
★★★★
A dead-pan comedy-drama set in a 1970s beach town in Los Angeles County, Inherent Vice follows private detective Larry “Doc” Sportello (Phoenix) as he works three cases in a semi-permanent stoned haze.
It’s stoner noir, Doc’s more half-baked than hard-boiled.
The cases are slightly off-beat riffs on noir standbys, for example a black-power gang member looking for his neo-Nazi ex-business partner.
In a fashion typical of the genre, the cases overlap and bleed together into a sea of corruption and vice, as Doc sinks in over his head.
You just have to go with the flow. If you try to keep up or get ahead you’ll get lost in a confusing tangle of matted plots and characters.
Like a child doing calculus you might pick out a glimmer of meaning, but you’ll never be sure it isn’t just gibberish with vaguely familiar characters.
As Doc tells his ex-girlfriend/new client in the first scene: “Don’t worry, thinking comes after.”
And there’s plenty to chew on once it’s time for thinking.
Phoenix gives a meaty, understated performance as Doc.
He puts a lot of emotion into every flicker across a good naturedly blank face marred only by an increasingly permanent confused brow crease.
A fleeting half smile as he sinks back on to his couch, after an ex he hasn’t seen in years interrupts his nap to ask for help, shows nostalgia, affection, and an amused acceptance of whatever life brings.All in about half a second.
When it comes to Academy Award winner Elswit’s cinematography it both looks beautiful and always reinforces the actors’ performances.
Mostly that means getting across Doc’s state of mind, whether that’s the slight shakes of a hand held camera as Doc is put off balance by his situation, or viewing the action through a window in a small part of the screen as he struggles to get free in a tiny room.
Even the title means something. Besides just being really cool sounding.
Inherent vice is an insurance term for damage you can’t avoid because it’s in the nature of the thing.
“Eggs break, chocolate melts, glass shatters…” as the film says.
Which makes me think that my biggest problem with the film is the result of something very deliberate.
After all convoluted plots are noir’s inherent vice.
