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Critics Consensus: 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.
Critic Consensus: 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.
All Critics (235) | Top Critics (47) | Fresh (172) | Rotten (63) | DVD (4)
If the adaptation's a little too faithful to sustain a cinematically tight story, there's still a lot to admire in the sheer, uninhibited folly of the whole thing, the gall to get groovy while the Oscar-watchers are on high alert.
Anderson moves further from conventional storytelling with each new film, and closer to something more intuitive, more damning, more true. He hasn't made it there yet. God help us when he does.
Some storylines conclude, some collide, others dissipate. But the film's main crime is this: It's boring.
Joaquin Phoenix is perfectly cast as the perpetually befuddled Doc, a private detective of sorts who immerses himself in pot in the Los Angeles of 1970.
Although it's not as hermetic and impenetrable as The Master, Inherent Vice still comes off as a giant inside joke to anyone who hasn't read Pynchon's novel.
Inherent Vice is a sun-glared, neon-limned muddle of noir plotline and potheaded jokery that not only doesn't make sense, but actually seems to try hard not to.
It's an exhausting task to wrap your mind around, but this is the type of film you have to turn something off to let it all in, and for that reason alone makes Inherent Vice beautiful, yet elusive.
I connected on an emotional level with it the first time, but I suspect I may find it better on repeat viewings; there is a masterpiece in there somewhere, I just have to dig deeper to find it.
A fog of uncertain motivations ... make it hard to ever get purchase on the film and truly engage with it.
"Inherent Vice" is foggy, sprawling and shaggy, yet epic in its own way.
Don't go looking for any explanations. Just look, man.
Paul Thomas Anderson is here to honor everything Thomas Pynchon and Inherent Vice are about, without dumbing the narrative down to draw a wider audience.
Wants to be quirky and funny, but is mostly rather boring with a few amusing scenes. The druggy P.I.'s case is confusing and ultimately not particularly satisfying. At least a lot of stars move around in the picture, but even their good performances create very few memorable scenes or a coherent plot. Waterston sticks out with her performance, though.
Super Reviewer
The plot is overlong, extremely intricate - convoluted would be the exact word - and has way too many characters, but still this trippy private eye crime-comedy compensates for its flaws with a delicious, groovy '70s vibe, a great soundtrack and a hilarious dopehead humor.
The main problem with adapting Thomas Pynchon is that Pynchon has written some of the most complex, trippy prose that has ever existed. Just reading his short story "Entropy" will confuse and educate you on the style and tonality of much of Pynchon's work. (Though that story includes aliens) A great way that Paul Thomas Anderson incorporates the madness and frivolity of Pynchon's words is having a narrator to spout it off constantly. Read more at http://www.bluefairyblog.com/oscarseries/2015/4/8/inherent-vice
Really disliked this. Could barely follow it and found it dull and ugly to look at. Characters and situations were stupid. I hated the lead character, not interesting at all to carry a movie. Just one surreal situation after another relying on smut or drug reference to be "clever". I have liked this directors other films quite a lot, so this is really disappointing.
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