Inherent Vice (film)

Inherent Vice is a 2014 American crime comedy-drama film directed and adapted for screen by Paul Thomas Anderson, based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Pynchon. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro, Jena Malone, Joanna Newsom, and Martin Short. Its soundtrack was composed by Jonny Greenwood.

The film premiered at the 2014 New York Film Festival and began a theatrical release in the United States on December 12, 2014. It has gained generally positive reviews from critics, with critical praise to Brolin and Waterston's performances, and was nominated for two Oscars and a Golden Globe for Phoenix.

Plot

In 1970, Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston), visits the rickety beach house of her ex-boyfriend Larry "Doc" Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) in Gordita Beach, a fictional town in Los Angeles. Doc also happens to be a private investigator and hippie/dope head. Shasta tells him about her new lover, Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts) a wealthy real estate developer. She then asks Doc to help prevent a plot by Mickey’s wife and her lover to have Mickey abducted and committed to an insane asylum.

At his office, Doc meets with Tariq Kahlil (Michael K. Williams), a member of the Black Guerrilla Family. Khalil hires Doc to find Glen Charlock (Christopher Allen Nelson), a member of the Aryan Brotherhood (AB) he met in jail who now owes him money. Charlock happens to be one of one of Mickey's white supremacist bodyguards.

Doc visits Mickey's Channel View Estates project, followed by dozens of police officers. Doc enters the only business present in the developing strip mall, a brothel disguised as a massage parlor, and meets an employee named Jade (Hong Chau). Doc searches the premises for Charlock, but is knocked on the head with a baseball bat and collapses.

He awakens outside lying next to a body, who turns out to be Charlock, and is taken to a police station where he is interrogated about the murder of Charlock and the disappearance of both Mickey and Shasta. Doc is helped by his attorney, Sauncho Smilax (Benicio del Toro), who is not a criminal lawyer and also not apparently being paid in actual money by Doc, and is willing to help either the police or Doc indiscriminately. Detective Christian F. "Bigfoot" Bjornsen (Josh Brolin) of the LAPD then unsuccessfully tries to convince Doc to become an informant for the police.

Doc then takes on his third "case" of the film. He is hired by former heroin addict Hope Harlingen (Jena Malone), who is looking for her missing husband, Coy (Owen Wilson), a saxophone player. She was told that Coy was dead but believes he is alive because shortly after his death she received a large deposit in her bank account.

Doc makes his way to the Wolfmann residence and meets his wife, Sloane (Serena Scott Thomas), as well as her "spiritual guide"/boyfriend. Doc tours the house and finds a closet filled with ties, each with a naked portrait of one of Mickey's lovers painted on it.

Doc meets with Deputy DA Penny Kimball (Reese Witherspoon), with whom he is also having an affair on the side. She asks him about Mickey and Shasta's disappearances and the murder of Charlock. She suggests maybe Doc did kill Charlock and just forgot because he is always high. Doc returns to his office to find a message from Jade who apologizes for setting him up and tells him to "beware of the Golden Fang". Jade meets Doc in an alley where she explains that the Golden Fang is an international drug smuggling operation. He then runs into Coy, who is hiding undercover at a house on Topanga Canyon. He claims that no one recognizes him even though he played saxophone with the band that resides there.

Sauncho gives Doc more information on the Golden Fang, including the fact that it was stuck in the Bermuda Triangle for 50 years. While Doc is watching a Richard Nixon rally on TV, he sees Coy Harlingen appear on the screen, protesting Nixon's speech. When he talks to Coy about it, Doc learns that Coy dabbled in Communism years ago and that he is now a police informant. He explains that he fears for his life and now only wants to return to his wife and daughter.

Back at home, Doc receives a postcard from Shasta that mentions a long-ago experience with a Ouija board. The board sent them on a hunt downtown to find dope, but when they arrive at the address they find nothing but an empty lot.

Doc goes back to the address and finds a large building that is shaped suspiciously like a golden fang. He meets a dentist, Dr. Rudy Blatnoyd (Martin Short), and is joined by Japonica Fenway (Sasha Pieterse). He remembers Japonica as the barely-legal daughter of wealthy Crocker Fenway (Martin Donovan), who had once hired Doc to locate Japonica after one of her many attempts to run away. Japonica drives Doc, his friend Denis, and Rudy home, despite them all being high on cocaine, and they are pulled over by a police officer for driving with the headlights off. The officer lets them off with a warning.

Bigfoot meets with Doc in a Japanese restaurant. While eating pancakes, Bigfoot tells Doc that Rudy has just been found dead with a neck injury â€" fang bites. Bigfoot also informs Doc that there may be a link between Puck Beaverton (Keith Jardine) (a mysterious man with a swastika tattooed on his face) and Coy. Doc suggests that the police test the injury for gold residue.

Doc drives out to Chryskylodon, an upscale insane asylum in the desert, to find Puck Beaverton. It appears to be run by a sort of cult with a connection to the Golden Fang, including a man with a swastika on his face. Doc notices two FBI agents escorting Mickey through the premises. Doc manages to talk with Mickey and learns that Mickey has given up on the state of the world. He had been feeling guilty for the negativity that his real-estate business has caused and wants to give away all his money. He now is a happy member of the cult.

When Doc returns home to his beach house, he is greeted by Shasta, who has returned and is indifferent to all the trouble her disappearance has caused. She confesses to being on a "three-hour tour" and that she was brought along as inherent vice. She and Doc have sex; and when she asks him "Does this mean we're back together?" Doc replies, "No."

Doc meets with Penny again, who is willing to provide him with confidential files. He reviews them and learns that Adrian Prussia (Peter McRobbie), a loan shark, is paid by the police department to kill people for them; one of his victims was Bigfoot's former partner. Prussia is tied to the Golden Fang and Doc learns that Glen Charlock was involved with a deal, which is how he ended up dead. Doc visits Adrian, noticing his obsession with baseball bats (which suggests that it was Adrian that knocks out Doc at the beginning of the film) but is abducted and drugged by Puck. He wakes up, handcuffed to a ceiling pipe. He manages to escape, killing both Puck and Adrian. Bigfoot appears and rescues Doc but after driving him home, Doc learns that he has been set up and all the smuggled heroin from the Golden Fang has been planted in the trunk of his car.

Doc hides the heroin in his house, and then meets with Crocker Fenway and arranges for the drugs to be returned in exchange for Coy's freedom. During the conversation, Fenway intimates that he killed the dentist as revenge for getting Japonica hooked on drugs and taking advantage of her.

Sauncho and Doc go to the ocean and watch as the Golden Fang is confiscated by the feds. Coy finally reunites with his family. Mickey Wolfmann is in the newspaper again, having returned to his previous state as a wealthy, money-driven businessman. One can infer that his trip to Chryskylodon helped him change his mind about giving away all his money, and was set up or encouraged by his wife to maintain her lifestyle.

The film ends as Doc and Shasta ride in a car going to an unknown destination. Doc asks her if means they are back together. She replies, "Of course not."

Cast

Production

Development

It was first reported in December 2010 that Anderson wanted to adapt Inherent Vice; at the time, he had been writing a treatment and started on a script after The Master had been shelved indefinitely months prior. Anderson originally adapted the entire 384 page novel sentence by sentence which made it easier for him to cut down the script than the novel. By February 2011, Anderson had written a first draft and was more than halfway done with a second draft. The first draft was written without a narrator but the character of Sortilège was later turned into the voice of the narrator. In September 2012, Anderson stated that he was still writing the script but was hoping he could get Inherent Vice into production and have a few years of being more productive.

This is the first film adaptation from a Thomas Pynchon novel with Anderson describing it "like a Cheech & Chong movie". Years prior, Anderson considered adapting Pynchon's 1990 novel Vineland but could not figure out how but when Inherent Vice came out he was drawn to it and wrote the film concurrently with The Master. Anderson significantly changed the ending from the novel and described the film as "deeply written and beautifully profound stuff mixed in with just the best fart jokes and poop jokes that you can imagine." Anderson drew inspiration from Kiss Me Deadly, The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye, and Cheech & Chong's Up in Smoke. Anderson has said he tried to cram as many jokes onto the screen as Pynchon squeezed onto the page and that the visual gags and gimmicks were inspired by Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker-style slapstick spoofs like Police Squad!, Top Secret!, and Airplane!. Anderson also used the underground comic strip Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers as what he has described as an invaluable "research bible" for the writing process.

Casting

Robert Downey, Jr. was reportedly said to be interested in the role of Larry "Doc" Sportello and was making plans to start shooting in the fall of 2011 since he had dropped out of Oz the Great and Powerful. Downey, Jr. stated in December 2011 that the planned collaboration was "probably true". In January 2013, it was reported that Joaquin Phoenix was in talks for the lead and that Downey, Jr. had ultimately passed on the role. Downey, Jr. later said that Anderson wanted to make the film with Phoenix because he was too old.

In May 2013, it was reported that Benicio del Toro, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, Martin Short, and Jena Malone were in talks to join the film. In May 2013, it was reported that Josh Brolin joined the cast and that Katherine Waterston joined as the lead female role. In June 2013, it was reported that Peter McRobbie and Sasha Pieterse joined the cast. In July 2013, it was reported that Timothy Simons joined the cast. In October 2013, it was reported that Michael K. Williams joined the cast.

In September 2014, it was reported that Pynchon may have a cameo in the film, which Anderson would not confirm, citing Pynchon's choice to stay out of the public spotlight. Brolin went as far as to confirm the cameo and claimed that Pynchon was on set but that nobody knew it was him as he stayed in the corner.

Filming

Principal photography began in May 2013, and it was reported that shooting was to take place until August 2, 2013. Shooting permits in California covered a San Fernando Valley warehouse, a storefront on Slauson Boulevard, driving shots in the Canoga Park area, driving shots in canyon roads above Malibu and a warehouse in Chinatown. In June 2014, filming also took place in Pasadena, and aboard the tall ship American Pride located in Long Beach.

The set has been described as organized chaos but the cast felt protected when they took big risks. Short stated that "If you’re working with a great director, you feel very, very, very safe because you know that all the decisions will be made months later in the editing room." Malone stated that "it was a very structured process" and that the "chaos can only come from a grounded, logical base because you have to know where you’re going to be spinning from. The logic becomes the chaos and the chaos becomes the logic."

According to Waterston, Anderson did not have a clear goal while on set but it did not feel chaotic. Brolin expressed similar feelings saying that "It was crazy, chaotic but really, really gratifying." Brolin also stated that there was "a really strange lack of pretense" but that Anderson would work with the actors when they felt something was not working. Pieterse stated that Anderson allowed "freedom and flexibility to really dive into your character and shape the scene". Wilson said "Sometimes I wouldn’t necessarily know what I was doing. We were encouraged to kind of do anything."

Music

On February 6, 2014, The Film Music Reporter confirmed that Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood would compose the music for the film. His score was recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. This is the third time Greenwood has scored an Anderson film, the first two being There Will Be Blood and The Master. An unreleased Radiohead song called "Spooks" appears on the soundtrack, as do recordings from the late 1960s by Neil Young, Can, and The Marketts, among others. The film soundtrack was released by Nonesuch Records on December 16.

Release

Inherent Vice premiered as the centerpiece at the New York Film Festival on October 4, 2014. The film received a limited release on December 12, 2014, before being released in 645 theaters on January 9, 2015.

Reception

Inherent Vice was met with mainly positive reviews. Many critics have praised the film for its direction and performances, particularly Josh Brolin and Katherine Waterston, while some were frustrated by its complicated plot. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 72%, based on 180 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The site's consensus reads, "Inherent Vice may prove frustrating for viewers who demand absolute coherence, but it does justice to its acclaimed source material -- and should satisfy fans of director P.T. Anderson." At Metacritic, the film has a score of 81 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Some reviews say that Inherent Vice has the makings of a cult film.

The New York Post '​s Kyle Smith bemoaned the film as being "... meandering even by Anderson's standards, is easily the worst of his movies, a soporific 2½-hour endurance test... mostly the film is a hazy, backlit stoner vision filigreed with half-hearted comedy and an occasional reference to the End of the Hippie Dream... these are all throwaway jokes, not a coherent satiric vision... five minutes after it ends, you won't remember the resolution, mainly because Anderson is too cowardly to take a chance by actually saying something." IGN's Matt Patches wrote, "It's utterly mesmerizing and one of the grooviest movies of the year" but added that the movie "is dense, lots on its mind without any clear thoughts." Film Journal International '​s Ethan Alter commented that the film is "confounding, challenging and consistently unique."

Accolades

References

External links

• Official website
• Inherent Vice at the Internet Movie Database
• Inherent Vice at Box Office Mojo
• Inherent Vice at Rotten Tomatoes
• Inherent Vice at Metacritic