Inherent Vice (2015)

Inherent Vice (R) - Noir Review

"Smoke 'em if you got 'em"

Gordita Beach, LA County, SoCal, 1970.  A stoned PI is approached by his beach bunny ex-girlfriend about a case that ends up involving surf bands, white yachts, billionaire Real estate developers being kidnapped, Indonesian Tar Heroin syndicates, Commie Black Lists, anti-subversive units of the LAPD, Dentists, kinky sex, overdose of drugs and not enough rock n roll in director P.T. Anderson's (The Master) adaptation of the infamous Tom Pynchon's famous novel, Inherent Vice.

Firstly, the acting is stupendous.  The cast is led by Joaquin Phoenix as "Doc," the bleary eyed mumbling flat foot with a spliff and a straw sunhat instead of a Marlboro and fedora.  His counter balance is with LAPD Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, whose big shoes are filled with straight laced-rage and equal paranoia by Josh Brolin, bringing a much needed humor to his buttoned up meat head who likes to munch on frozen chocolate bananas.  Other associates infiltrate the screen; Owen Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short (!) and Benicio Del Toro take turns at the absurd.  But it's the femmes-(non)fatales that really shine with the leads, newishcomers Katherine Waterson sizzles with her own sensual light as Shasta the tricky ex and Joanna Newsome does a sunny double duty as a psychic friend and hippy dippy voice over narrator that really adds volumes to the post-60s ambiance.

Cinematographer Robert Elswit (BoogieNights and others) again gives PTA some knockout frames, and like Doc you may feel like someone slipped you a PCP spiked-joint filled with beautiful smoky colors that will put you on your ass, out cold.  We, however, cannot avoid the bummers, and they are not hallucinations, we think?  The manic energy of Anderson's earlier films is again missing when it is most sorely missed.  This movie is a somber downer, but that itself isn't a criticism, the story is supposed to be a fuzzy headed hangover of a meandering Noir plot, memories of the night before terribly hard to dredge up through the haze of marijuana killed brain cells.  However the red-veined eyes rarely ever impacts the lens, things are SAID and not VISUALIZED, which is a shocking misunderstanding of the book for a master visualist like PTA and company.  This film has reverent regard for the source material, and to be sure this is one of the most faithful adaptations of a book, but instead of showing plot points the movie often only druggedly slurs them.  This may make the plot over-complicated for some, extremely frustrating for others, where in the novel the clarity of the printed page helped somewhat.

The book?  As a very faithful adaptation of the words, the film often sadly misses the novel's purpose.  PTA's Inherent Vice is best when it riffs on the source material instead of sex-slavishly regurgitates it.  The more exaggerated Cop vs Private Eye relationship is great stuff, the additional slap stick and notebook gags (which sadly stop about half way through) bring needed comic relief.  The wish would be that PTA made more of those decisions instead of being 90% the page, which it is.  For instead of being able to concentrate on the film, it brings up what was necessarily removed to achieve it's almost too long run time.  The character of the places is almost gone, the surfer lifestyle mixed with the death of the 60s, the hectic surf music on the Dodge's radio dial, the post-Manson paranoia, the foggy beaches and scruffy surfers driving around in woodies and eating whole pies at delicatessens at midnight, this whole liver of the piece has been removed, and so the audience is left with the skeleton of the story with much of it's corpulent flesh shaved away, a junkie on a diet.  Since music and moving pictures is what Anderson does best, it is a double downer that the soundtrack isn't affecting or period blaring rocknroll.  Meanwhile everything else being so tied to the exact wording has hamstrung the film from the jazz-like improvisation that energized his early work or the darkly simpatico rhythms that fueled the madness of There Will Be Blood or The Master.  Vice could really have used some of those offbeat vibes, and loudly.

And yet for every bad acid trip there is a good, and every scene Waterson's Shasta appears in outshines every other, even the Doc/Bigfoot bromances (which are subtly fantastic).  The way the camera captures her, the way she embodies the poisonous image of "the ex," is obviously the focal point of Anderson's emotional reasons for making this film and wonderfully transports us to the mindset of a man hungup on a dame no matter how hard he tries.  Her couch scene is worth the price of admission alone, for the reasons of her brazen acting courage, beautiful camera work, naturalness of environment, raw emotion and savage desires.  Doc's feelings for Shasta aren't stated, they are shown, a tortuously toxic turn-on that he hides beneath layers of denial.  It is a fascinating relationship, and a wonderfully realized hippy version of the black widow from noir-past as originally envisioned by Pynchon.  It's an outstanding scene in a good film, and not the only one.  They all have great acting and direction and cinematic panache, the entire film does.  And yet the movie isn't great on its own, at least not yet.  Perhaps with more viewings, as with the Master and yet so unlike his other films, that scenes that were great will overwhelm the rest and force it's entirety to greatness. *Sad Sax Solo*  But unlike the movies whose company it wants to join, the neo-noir classics like Polanski's Chinatown or Altman's The Long Goodbye, Inherent Vice in the end fizzles like a wet zigzag joint (surprising for a writer so dedicated to fantastic endings and last words, even the book's ending has more punch).  Perhaps, with time and a little TLC, Inherent Vice will blaze brightly, heavily potent and without it's (and our) former hangups to get in the way of letting us fade into the hazy spicy smoke of a complicated good time.

7 Painted Lady Neck Ties out of 10 (GOOD)

The Master (2012)

The Master (R) Review

"...The Fool or the Fool who follows him?" (Revised 3/20/2013)

PT Anderson's follow up to his last opus, Best Picture contender "There Will Be Blood" stars Juaquin Phoenix as Freddie Quell, an unbalanced ex-WWII sailor drifting through the world as a hopeless violent drunk. Phoenix is astonishing, playing Freddie as a stooping maniac with a twisted evil grin, a slave to sex and homemade alcohol, a barely restrained psychotic who is let loose on an unsuspecting public by a no-longer desperate US Navy. Freddie feels real, his foibles and mannerisms adroitly make him uncomfortable to be around and yet sympathetic to the audience, Quell is a manly man and does not dwell on his pathos, he shrugs his shoulders and laughs about them. That is until he chances to meet Lancaster Dodd, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, an enigmatic man who's electric personality and wit have gathered a flock around him, the sproutings of a cult. Dodd proceeds to delve into Quell's mind, to try and cure him through his "proven" methods that he has discovered, of his alcoholism and depravities; most of all he welcomes him unabashedly into his family (his first day among them Freddie attends a Dodd family wedding) and gives him a home. Hoffman plays Dodd with enough panache to really let us understand why people would fawn over him, read his book, believe his abstract teachings, but Phoenix is the star here and has the most screen time, and rightfully so. This story is not about Scientology, does not bash or berate, instead it simply tries to show what it believes, what humans did to each other in the blossoming of the Atomic Age, one side of the coin that was the dawning of the New Age cultism. Humans looking for answers, and finding someone claiming to have them (Dodd). Much to everyone's chagrin, Freddie Quell is more interested in his next drink even as he becomes a sycophant and violent enforcer of Dodd's teachings (which he may or may not even believe in, but they do seem to assist in his quality of life). The film was shot on 65mm, the last film since Branagh's Hamlet in 1996, and the clarity and light are wonderful.

The score, once again by Radiohead's Greenwood who also did There Will Be Blood, is periodic and well done, but surprisingly not a strong character in the movie except at the very beginning. I was shocked to find myself being worn out by the slow pace of it all, of watching a film with such great performances in a story that went nowhere and seemingly had nothing to say. There were shockingly few (unlike PTA's other, I'd say more Masterful, films) moments of poignancy, of energy and life and death. The violence happens behind doors, is discussed in past tense or feels impotent (perhaps PTA is trying to break his own mold but I would say detrimentally). The nervous twitter of Punch Drunk Love or the angry machinations of There Will Be Blood are not present, the cold clarity of Hard Eigth or the youthful zest of Boogie Nights, the random calamity that is Magnolia, all missing. The movie felt very Kubrikian to me, long shots of actors characterizing for the camera, sexual tension and obsession, the framing and the construction of the scenes. Don't get me wrong, this is definately a Anderson film (it greatly resembles There Will Be Blood in beauty and texture), but one without teeth. There is no great story to tell, there is no dynamic way to tell it, no greater subtext or purpose other than "this happened", and at a long 2 hours 15 minutes it feels like a slow tedious happening. I was happy when it ended, and that is no jab at PT, this is a movie about Quell and his post-WW2 PTSD and the film's final frames satisfied me with the character's story arc. The rest of the film may not be enough to get us to that ending, in fact I believe the story is as pointless and drifting as Quell himself, Masterless.

There are many things about The Master that are unforgettable, mesmerizing (literally), and should open a few doors for some typecasted actors (Amy Adams as Dodd's wife is a pleasantly chilling performance), and when the large beauty of the open sea smacks the camera lens it is wonderful. However, I believe the best of this film is probably in the making, the dallies and extra angles and alternate and deleted scenes. Unfortunately I don't think most of that made it onto the screen, that it held itself up enough and as entertainment The Master comes across as an unfortunately dull movie about a fortunately interesting subject, a film that doesn't point fingers where we need it to and is ultimately talking about a subject that no one understands. The whys of existence and the insanity of trying to define it, so what does that say about those who attempt to? In that, The Master succeeds wonderfully, and I won't soon forget it, but will have a hard time recommending it.

*ADDENDUM*
Having rewatched the film and gotten over the shock of PT Anderson teasing his own conventions and then throwing them overboard, there can be no doubt that The Master was the best film made in 2012.  PT's vision and the way he thinks around corners is flush on the screen is fascinating, infuriating ways, and while I stand by my review and everything it says, in perspective to the rest of the years choices in film it is the clear stand out.  Seeing it at home also has allowed me to absorb the amazing beauty in every single frame of film, the beauty is as hypnotising as Juaquins performance, and as Paul Thomas Anderson's refusal to do what I expect.  Braco, and must be watched again to appreciated fully.

8.5 Bread Filtered Cocktails out of 10 (GREAT)
Formerly 6.5 "I'm as Shocked as you are" out of 10 (GOOD)