The reception of Inherent Vice has included predictable comparisons with The Big Sleepand reiteration of the story of Raymond Chandler’s don’t-ask-me reply to Howard Hawks’s appeal for clarification as to who killed the chauffeur. But someone steeped in Pynchon isn’t the best judge of the success of the movie of Inherent Vice: whatever one’s views about the relationship between a film and the material from another medium on which it’s based, what’s on screen needs to be self-sufficient to the extent that it’s intelligible without reference to the original. The interesting, enthusiastic review of the film in this week’s TLS strongly suggests that, if one is as well informed about the Pynchon oeuvre as the reviewer Paul Grimstad, Anderson’s adaptation of the novel may be richly rewarding. I’ve not read any Pynchon but he is, according to Wikipedia, ‘noted for his dense and complex novels’ so Anderson may well have been faithful to the spirit of the original. Inherent Vice is based on the 2009 novel by Thomas Pynchon and the first attempt to adapt this author’s work for the screen. The plot thickens very quickly and there’s no point my attempting a synopsis: I couldn’t without stealing someone else’s. Shasta Fay asks Doc to help thwart a plot by Wolfmann’s wife and her lover to have Mickey abducted and committed to an insane asylum. Her new lover, Mickey Wolfmann, is a wealthy real-estate developer in the town. One evening, his ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth pays Doc an unexpected call. The place is (the fictional) Gordita Beach in Los Angeles, where Doc Sportello inhabits an infirm-looking beach house. (There is a ship involved in the story.) It means something that will unavoidably break down – ‘eggs break, chocolate melts’. The title, by the way, is explained – by the voiceover narrator of the film – as a term that occurs in the small print of marine insurance policies. It does, though, raise the question of how meaningful enjoyment of a film can be if you’ve only a hazy idea of what’s been going on. I enjoyed the film a lot – 149 minutes in Paul Thomas Anderson’s company pass more quickly than five in Christopher Nolan’s. This is a shaggy dog story in which individual moments, or even episodes, make sense but their relation to each other is a different matter. Watching Inherent Vice in its entirety is a bit like watching a two-and-a-half-hour trailer. Instead, the two minutes set the basic scene, adumbrate the narrative complexity and give a flavour of the wit of the performers and the dialogue. Many trailers verge on summarising the story of the whole film. The trailer had an undoubted highlight: when someone hits ‘Doc’ Sportello – the stoner private eye who is the film’s protagonist – on the back of the head with a baseball bat, Joaquin Phoenix does a beautifully funny, split-second double-take before falling to the ground but I think the convoluted plotting of Inherent Vice is the main reason why the trailer as a whole is so unusually good. The experience of the whole movie hasn’t caused me to think any of these were bad reasons for being on its side and I still am. Inherent Vice has also quickly gained an aura of incomprehensibility: it was nice to think, as someone who often fails to understand a plot that hasn’t been remarked upon as Byzantine, I might be in good company this time. The cast includes plenty of talented actors. The film is written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The trailer was the most enjoyable I’d seen for ages. I looked forward to Inherent Vice for several reasons.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |