Lorna Irvine reviews a film that puts 'the pot into potboiler'.
There are rumours that Larry 'Doc' Sportello, the main character and anti-hero of this new epic, sprawling film by Paul Thomas Anderson, is actually Anderson himself, and the catalyst for his adventures, ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay (Katherine Waterston), really Anderson's own ex, Fiona Apple. If I were Apple and this was true, I would be less than chuffed: she is given so little to do, other than pout and wear very little, and Sportello is brutal to her--there again, hippies and gender politics were never a good fit. And accordingly, the male gaze is more than adequately served here. Well, it is 1970. Man.
Shasta wakes Sportello from his druggy fug to involve him in an over-egged caper, involving kidnapping, real estate, neo- Nazis, Black Panthers, Phil Spectoresque dodgy dentists, missing persons, groupies and massage parlours.
It's as though the Furry Freak Brothers and Scooby Doo got jammin' and reinvented The Maltese Falcon--indeed, the mysterious 'Golden Fang' could be the riposte to this.
The deadpan humour and sense of place are what sets it apart from similar crime films, all framed by Californian sunshine. Phoenix's central performance is hugely enjoyable--putting the pot into potboiler, he is a man things happen to without lifting a finger--and is at his best when squaring up to his natural enemy, a 'square'--Detective Christian 'Bigfoot' Bjornsen, a Buzzcut wearing Republican man--mountain of smart putdowns and seeming sexual repression.
Only one character seems truly worthy of sympathy: the kindly, mysterious confidante Sortilege (Joanna Newsom, who also provides the grating narration--at least now we know why she has such an odd singing voice!), who acts as the strong, wise centre to the chaos around Sportello.
Underpinning the over-indulgence is nonetheless a real sense of vulnerability that the Hippy Dream is nothing more than a counter-cultural game of Jenga, ready to topple over in the breeze. Sportello is left much the same as he begins--alone with his brain-fug.
Yet, the melancholy of the hippy dream expired, smelling like, as in one of Brolin's best put-downs, 'a patchouli fart' is what keeps the film compelling. Old hippies do die, and that's the reason to see this film, as the American Nightmare. It's all a bit of a comedown; that's surely the point. But, as smart and watchable as it is, it's no Magnolia.
Inherent Vice (15) is in general release. Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Katherine Waterston.
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