Rightly lauded by many as the finest filmmaker of his generation, Paul Thomas Anderson has trodden an eclectic directorial path in recent years. Although his early films, from his debut feature Sydney (Hard Eight), through 70’s porn odyssey Boogie Nights, his magnum opus Magnolia, and Punch Drunk Love, all varied wildly in theme, they were undeniably bound by a visual and tonal style shepherded by a true auteur. 2007’s There Will Be Blood seemed to usher in a second phase to this already remarkable career, showing a far more somber and unflinching film devoid of even the briefest respite of humour. That film, and his subsequent masterpiece The Master, presented an image of a director telling a different kind of story, as brilliant as his earlier work, but with a slightly matured view of the world.
Fans of Anderson were treated to a two hour interview on Marc Maron’s wonderful podcast recently, where the usually enigmatic director spoke at length about his upbringing, his close relationship with regular collaborator and friend Phillip Seymour Hoffman, his filmography and newest project, Inherent Vice.
His adaptation of the notoriously complex Thomas Pynchon novel of the same name has divided opinion almost exactly between audience and critic. Reviews have been mostly great for the film, hailing it as “stupendous” (The Telegraph) and a “triumph” (The Guardian), perhaps unsurprising due to his reputation as critics’ darling. But for the first meaningful time in his career, the audience response to Inherent Vice has been largely negative. A recent article in The Guardian spoke of mass walkouts, with complaints about the garbled plot and inaudible dialogue.
I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Like all of his films, Inherent Vice is unique in offering something rarely seen in mainstream cinema. Its loose, freeform structure shimmies between an old noir classic and a goofy stoner comedy. Distinctiveness alone doesn’t automatically make for great cinema, but Anderson again displays his sublime talent for utilising an ensemble cast, including his second collaboration with Joaquin Phoenix (after The Master), Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Michael K Williams, Katherine Waterson, Reese Witherspoon, and Eric Roberts.
As Marc Maron pointed out during that podcast, there comes a point in all of Anderson’s films where the viewer realises they are going to have to see the film again to fully understand it. Never the result of a convoluted plot, there is just something inexplicable about his films that require subsequent viewings. Whereas with Magnolia or Boogie Nights this thought occurs at around the two hour mark, Inherent Vice invokes this feeling after about ten minutes.
Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello is a disheveled Private Eye balls deep in the hippie counter-culture in 1970s LA, struggling to get to grips with three different cases. The most significant of these, in which property baron Mickey Wolfmann has gone missing, confusingly becomes entangled with the other two, leaving Doc with the insurmountable struggle of understanding the mysteries around him, let alone solving them.
Do you ever read a book whilst having something more pressing occupying your mind? Your eyes are dutifully scanning the words, but your brain is partly absent in processing the prose properly. After a page or two you snap back with a realisation that you’ve not soaked in any information whatsoever. You then re-read the same text, and although the specifics are new to you, there is something familiar in those lines, like those fleeting moments that follow waking up from a particularly realistic dream.
You can’t help but feel as if you have missed an important plot point, or some otherwise driving factor within the film’s events as each scene dawdles into the next. But once you accept that Doc is as lost as the viewer, the film washes over you the way a drunken conversation between friends whom you aren’t entirely familiar with does. Just as you think you are coming close to comprehending what’s going on, you are gently dragged in another direction. It’s reminiscent of The Big Lebowski in that the main protagonist seems entirely at odds with both his surroundings and the film itself; both he and the viewer are thrown into the middle of this world with little by way of exposition or explanation, let alone promise of a conclusion.
As a film, it is very much about the journey. Once you give yourself over to the mumbling, rambling madness of it, it consumes you entirely. But step out for just five minutes, and you can feel entirely at odds with the whole frustrating experience. Is Inherent Vice unique? Yes. Is it a masterpiece? I genuinely don’t know. Will I ever watch it again? Absolutely.
Inherent Vice will be showing at Broadway Cinema until Thursday 19 February 2015.
Inherent Vice official site
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