Inherent Vice

Worse—they left out the Bonzo Dog Band.

 

What a goddamn weird movie. I think I loved it. Super drug fueled noir that centers around a PI in 1970 California - what's not to like!?

 

I finally saw the movie of Inherent Vice. It's a horrible mess.

 

Took me long enough but I finally got around to seeing this. As a big PT Anderson fan I must admit I walked away rather unmoved by this extravaganza. I found it confusing and exhausting. I'd be open to seeing it again but I'm not sure it will make a difference. I just wasn't that interested in the story. I didn't understand why people did what they did in the film. The whole thing seemed rather flimsy. I never read the book so I didn't have that going for me either. Convoluted mess of a thing.

 

The film left me unmoved the first time, too. The second time it came off a whole lot better. I figure when I see it a third time, it will either completely click (like Magnolia did) or I will give up.

 

My review:


I’d heard the dialogue was often unintelligible and the plot too confusing to follow. So I didn’t expect to understand the film. Instead I decided in advance to give myself up for a delightfully confusing mess. It turned out I understood most of the dialogue and I followed the plot without any problem. At least for the most part I knew who people were, why they were doing what they were doing and what was generally happening. I do believe it was a comprehensible story. It was often funny with a very dry humour (the endless drug consumption as normal, the hipster words like groovy and far-out spoken in a monotone). It was a strong movie. Then the film ran into a horrible scene and it all sort of came apart at about the two hour mark. There is a sex scene on a sofa that was just a complete dead spot. The scene was terrible for multiple reasons. It was a long, rambling, hard to follow screed of dialogue and it was shot as one long, boring looking unbroken take. There was also a gratuitous moment of female full frontal nudity that I couldn’t justify as necessary. It killed the movie dead for several minutes. Such a turgid scene that sucked the life out of the film. Then the events that followed were harder to follow [see spoilers at the end of this review]. Character motivations seemed to completely disappear. It’s hard to say if I’m at fault or if the story stopped making sense. In the end, what did the real-estate developer actually have to do with anything? Then the film started to meander after the climax and took too long to just finish. It’s a good movie despite the iffy last half hour. I say this after just saying it’s a good movie, but I think in the end it was not a novel (by Thomas Pynchon) that was inherently cinematic. Really it’s just a long succession of one on one dialogue scenes with very little visual potential. The story does not necessarily play to cinemas strengths in an obvious way. Put it this way, there’s no grandiose visuals or camerawork to rival anything found in There Will Be Blood (2007). I really liked the first two hours until the sex scene. I didn’t mind the last half hour, but it was noticeably weaker and less coherent than what had gone before. SPOILERS: Who’s the guy with the baseball bat (he’d been mentioned earlier but I couldn’t recall the details)? Why did Joaquin Phoenix walk right into the guy’s office without an exit strategy? Why did Josh Brolin set him up, and how did he do it?



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Three questions with sub-questions.


Who was the guy with the baseball bat?


Why did Joaquin Phoenix walk into the dangerous guy’s office without an exit strategy, and why did he know to go to that office?


Why did Josh Brolin set him up (just for the money?), and how did he do it?

 

I've had a think and I guess Brolin set him up as he knew Doc would sell or give the drugs back to the owners. He could then track the drugs and make the bust when the drugs were on the boat. But then why would the drugs be on the boat since they're already on American soil? It's probably best if I stop trying to understand this plot.

 

I think this was the first dull PTA movie. Needed less Raymond Chandler and more Robert Altman.

 

Needed a whole lot more nitrous. I'm just saying'.

 

The first hour or so was great, the second five hours needed trimming a little!

 

i wanted so bad for this to be good, alas, i was very disappointed.

 

Same here. It left almost no impression on me when I first saw it a year or so ago. My sister saw it about a month ago and was asking me questions and I realized that though I had watched it, I barely remembered anything about it. So I re-watched it again tonight and it all clicked. It helps to watch with sub-titles as the dialog isn't all that clear sometimes.

 

I agree - open to seeing it again, not sure it'll make a difference.

It felt like it was Elmore Leonard-lite by way of The Big Lebowski, but without anything to remember...

I thought the film looked gorgeous, the performances all around were great (how can you not enjoy Martin Short as a coked-out womanizer when handled by a great director?) - even if some felt like "and here's another star cameo for ya for no reason"... but that's the issue. The parts were all very well done, but it didn't come together for me.

Like how you can forgive great films for awkward moments (oh... Nicholson's character having to talk to his son's grave in Ironweed - cringeworthy but necessary plot device, but wonderful movie despite) or a mike dropping in, but it's hard to truly enjoy a movie if all of the elements are there, but it just doesn't "work". It's movie magic - some charming films just "have it", some don't. This didn't.

And yes - I agree with a lot of people. I didn't understand the motivation of most of the characters - so it turned into actors just doing things and meeting interesting people who are semi-threatening or weird.

I haven't read the book it was based on, but these things can be difficult to translate - I love Carl Hiaasen, but his films have this same issue - and he keeps an arms length - so he can always say, "Not my fault!".

Perhaps the motivation of all the characters were simply to find the plot?

Jeff

 

Just watched it a few days ago - if you're curious, don't possibly expect to make sense of it, and know that it's overly long because of it not making sense.

Subtitles help because of Joaquin Phoenix mumbling so much of the time.

 

I just rewatched "Her" and half the time he's impossible to understand.

 

Another one I wasn't particularly crazy about, you're right!

 

I watched this a second time and liked it much more. Now I feel compelled to watch it a third time. I see the humor in it now. Its like art-house Fletch or something.

 

Its not a bad movie, but the character played by Josh Brolin I did not get at all. Just not believable for me...

 

Watched it for the second time. The subplot with Owen Wilson gets distracting and bogs the film down for a long time, but Joaquim Phoenix is hysterical. You just have to focus on his face for the whole film. He's one long stoned double take.

 

Terribly disappointing. Not helped by the mannered acting.

 

And that's why we can't have nice things.

 

I take that quote back. I watched it twice more and now I like it.

 

You don't really even have to take it back. it is half a mess. I think once you start watching it for the humor alone, it makes it worthwhile. The first time you watch it trying to make sense of it as a story and movie, it doesn't really work.

 

Would flat out love to describe it as a snooze fest, but maybe a jazz cigarette, munchies and beer + hammock would have helped.

 

I've seen this three times and I'm still undecided.