Inherent Vice

A rare (and total) misfire from Paul Thomas Anderson, Inherent Vice follows perpetually stoned 1970s private detective Larry “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) as he embarks on an almost extraordinarily meandering and convoluted quest to track down his missing ex-girlfriend (Katherine Waterston’s Shasta). It’s clear immediately that Inherent Vice has virtually nothing to offer even the most ardent of Anderson fans, as the writer/director, in adapting Thomas Pynchon’s eponymous novel, has flooded the proceedings with a whole host of uninteresting, overly quirky elements that grow more and more infuriating as time progresses – with the movie’s shocking lack of cohesion exacerbated by an aggressively episodic structure. The ensuing lack of momentum is far from surprising, certainly, as Anderson devotes the lion’s share of Inherent Vice‘s punishing 148 minutes to Doc’s episodic exploits – the majority of which possess few attributes designed to engage the viewer. (It doesn’t help that many scenes go on for much, much too long, with, for example, Doc’s late-in-the-movie encounter with Shasta coming off as flat-out interminable.) And although Anderson admittedly does include a small handful of intriguing sequences (eg most everything involving Martin Short’s hedonistic dentist remains an obvious highlight), Inherent Vice‘s thoroughly less-than-engrossing atmosphere ultimately cements its place as a misbegotten endeavor that hopefully marks the nadir of Anderson’s otherwise stellar career.

* out of ****