IMDb plot summary: In 1970, drug-fueled Los Angeles private investigator Larry "Doc" Sportello investigates the disappearance of a former girlfriend.
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, and Katherine Waterston.
Paul Thomas Anderson and I have an... interesting director/audience relationship. I frequently find his movies baffling, not because they're so outrageous, but because they seem so almost-normal, until it gets to the end and I realize I was never able to put all the pieces together. There Will Be Blood and Magnolia work for me. The Master and Phantom Thread don't. And this one lands in the latter half. It takes my least favorite part of crime noirs (the exhaustingly windy threads connecting the plot) and my least favorite part of Anderson's work (a bunch of possible themes all fighting each other) and combines them together. Its one saving grace for me was that it has much more humor scattered throughout than I expected, from the hilariously unlikely character names, to Joaquin's great "straight man" reactions to the wild scenarios going on around him, to truly funny lines of dialogue that felt like they were pulled from a different movie. This feels like it has the makings of a cult classic, and like most cult classics, it's not going to be beloved by all, and it certainly isn't by me. But it feels like something someone else could REALLY love.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Inherent Vice < Fahrenheit 451
Inherent Vice > The Professional
Inherent Vice < Wes Craven's New Nightmare
Inherent Vice < Annie (2014)
Inherent Vice > Don't Look Now
Inherent Vice > Our Paradise
Inherent Vice < So I Married an Axe Murderer
Inherent Vice < After the Thin Man
Inherent Vice < Before I Fall
Inherent Vice < A Mighty Wind
Inherent Vice > Fracture
Inherent Vice > Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Final spot: #2387 out of 3400, or 30%.
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