Upon Inherent Vice‘s release to theaters in December, most filmgoers were left perplexed by Paul Thomas Anderson‘s latest. It seemed to require multiple viewings to fully understand. I saw it three times myself, a concrete meaning eluded me. There’s something inherent — pun intended — about Anderson’s direction that leads you in infinite interpretations. He gives just enough for the audience to grasp, then points you in a new direction with film’s equivalent of sleight of hand.
Based on the novel of the same name by Thomas Pynchon, boiling the plot down to a mere paragraph would be an injustice. Many thought his book to be unfilmable, but Anderson delicately put his pen to film and made it work. How he made it work is a mystery and part of what makes it click. From afar, it’s a simple affair: after ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston) comes to private investigator “Doc” Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) asking to help stop her new lover from being committed to an insane asylum, Doc goes on a hippy adventure, picking up two new cases along the way that all intertwine to form a great meta-narrative.
Anderson weaves in and out of the story with all the coherence (or there lack) of Doc’s illegible and sporadic notetaking. It’s a surprise anyone can digest all the bits of information from case to case with any idea of what’s going on. Why it’s not important to discuss the details of each case and character we meet would go against the experience of it all. Doc is seemingly doped up the entire runtime, and it’s our job to decipher what on screen is imaginary and what is real.
The primary character in question is Shasta. So much of the film revolves around her, it’s she that initiates the plot and continues to push Doc. It’s not a question if Shasta exists, she definitely does. There are other characters that discuss her with Doc, and the narrator (Joanna Newsom) gives insight to Doc’s history and love for her. But what is brought into question is if her current presence is part of Doc’s hallucinations from his recreational activities.
[amz asin=”B00QXIIZ3W” size=”small”]You can’t necessarily tell from the script if she is real, but it’s in Anderson’s method of filming (handled by longtime PTA collaborator Robert Elswit) that hints at a more ethereal presence. The Blu-ray transfer shows why using film still has a place in cinema, lending a hand to the 70s aesthetic, bringing out a beautiful grain in the blue hues. If you can’t completely follow the storyline, you can certainly sit back to see just how remarkable the picture is.
Along with only Doc directly communicating with Shasta and cinematography hints, it’s a piece in the special features that makes me confident the goose chase Doc embarks on is self-induced. Sadly, it’s nothing that comes from PTA or any cast or crew member commentary (unlike Nightcrawler‘s release). This release is no Criterion Collection. The disc is severely lacking in extras, only giving four trailers and TV spots. For such an intriguing film, it’s disappointing to see so little given for the audience to dive further into Anderson and Pynchon’s world.
But it’s in the last special feature “Everything in This Dream” that helps push away the smoke for me. The feature’s title really gives it away itself, that there’s a dream element. There’s a shot in the film that alludes to Shasta being part of this dream element of the feature. As she is walking along Elswit’s surreal beach, the camera pans and her visage is eventually obstructed by Doc’s body. We stop to sit with Doc while Shasta keeps walking in the background. Eventually she becomes hidden by his figure as he looks into distance away from her. She’s been absorbed by him on screen, as she’s just a part of his ethos.
Once you question her, you begin to peer through the rest of the convoluted plot to see who else is just a facade. Josh Brolin as Detective “Bigfoot” Bjornsen included. I don’t think Brolin is completely imaginary, but he does represent a closeted sector of society and plays counterpart to Doc, as a tightfisted man of the law with a disdain towards hippy scum like Doc. But there are many situations where Doc could very well be imagining Bigfoot’s role. I’m sure you could make a case for any list of characters being of Doc’s mind, and that’s part of the intrigue — each viewing can produce a new interpretation.
Don’t get caught up in following each move in the plot, just run with the atmosphere, there’s plenty of it. The more you watch, the more you’ll see new elements such as relative newcomer Hong Chau holding her own among stars like Brolin and Phoenix. The ensemble is fine tuned all-around. But like I said, it would have been great to see more features at our disposal for this release, but maybe that’s part of the magic….
Almost three years have passed since the release of Anderson’s The Master and we still hardly know everything behind that, and this comedy-noir will fall in the same boat. He doesn’t want this to be an easy film to digest, why should he hand us the code?
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