Five Things We Learned At The Global Premiere Of ‘Inherent Vice’

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice had its big world premiere this past weekend, at the 52nd New York Film Festival.

It was a big coup for the festival to premiere the acclaimed director’s much-anticipated Thomas Pynchon adaptation, and on a rainy, cold New York morning it was up to Anderson and Joaquin Phoenix to shake the blasé, bleary-eyed New York critics out of our early Saturday stupors (okay maybe that was just me).

I think the story goes something like this: Phoenix stars as Doc Sportello, a private detective who receives word from his ex-girlfriend that there is a plot against the married man she’s having an affair with. From thereon out it’s an audience guessing game, as the story expands to include Josh Brolin as Bigfoot, a cop who’s also an actor and may be dirty; Owen Wilson’s Coy Harlington, an undercover government agent who may be in a cult; and a secret organisation of dentists known as Golden Fang.

As complex and convoluted as its source material, the film won’t open in Australian cinemas until next February (sorry guys!) — but here are a few take-aways from its first screening.

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It’s a Highbrow Stoner Film

Inherent Vice is a stoner movie for the highbrow arthouse crowd, if there can be such a thing. The Big Lebowksi (1998) meets American Hustle (2013) in a way, but less accessible to non-fans of the director.

Anderson has tried to recreate the era of early 1970s California culture, where marijuana smoke hung in the air and on-screen crime dramas were recalibrating the definition of good versus evil for a new generation, while blurring the lines between the two. It’s certainly closer to Boogie Nights (1997) in atmosphere than The Master (2012), There Will Be Blood (2007) or Magnolia (1999) — but unlike the stellar Boogie Nights, Inherent Vice is pretty much an incoherent scramble of ganja-fuelled noodlings between insufferably uninteresting characters.

After the screening I slunk in my chair and whispered to a friend: “I’ll be in the minority with this.” Lo and behold, most of the reactions were positive; several glowing. “The film is stupendous”, said The Telegraph’s five-star review. IGN labelled it “utterly mesmerizing and one of the grooviest movies of the year”, while The Guardian called it “a ramshackle triumph”.

It’s the first of his films that I have actively disliked.

The film has a great cast, many of which are game for what Anderson is up to — Reese Witherspoon, Katherine Waterston, Martin Short, Serena Scott Thomas, and Sasha Pieterse were my favourites of the large ensemble — but far too much of the excessive 150-minute runtime is spent on a mystery that ultimately proves dramatically unsatisfying, as well as far too complicated to be extensively followed.

While this may be true to the book, that doesn’t necessarily make for a good way to spend almost three hours of your day. Inherent Vice is ultimately akin to listening to a stoner tell a long, complicated story while you’re staying clean. You’d be wise to take some homemade baked goodies along to keep your buzz going for the entire feature length.

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It’s Intentionally Confusing

At the post-premiere press conference, Anderson was joined on stage by no less than eleven of his actors – most of whom claimed to have never read the Pynchon novel. “I had my assistant read it to me,” joked Martin Short.

Later, when discussing the very elaborate and oft-discombobulating plot, Anderson referenced the film-noir classic The Big Sleep (1946) as an indecipherable influence. “It made me realise that I couldn’t follow any of it, and it didn’t matter because I just wanted to see what was gonna happen next.”

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Most of the Actors Only Worked for a Few Days

Given the film is predominantly a string of cameos and small roles, Anderson admitted that most of his cast weren’t actually on set all that much. “It was a real drag,” he said, as he highlighted the mass of famous names and newcomers that circulate around the main characters. Among them are Anderson’s wife Maya Rudolph, Eric Roberts, Michael K Williams and Reese Witherspoon — who have very few scenes between them.

Folksy indie musician-cum-actor Joanna Newsom makes her acting debut in the film. Anderson spoke of choosing her to co-star as well as narrate the film, because he “liked her voice.”After each take, she said, she was “99% sure that that wouldn’t be in the movie.”

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Michael K. Williams Thought Paul Thomas Anderson Hated Him

After several of his co-stars — including Martin Short, Owen Wilson, Jena Malone, and Hong Chau — all labelled Anderson’s directorial style as “loose”, Michael K Williams got one of the biggest laughs by saying how relieved he was to hear his co-stars’ stories: “I thought it was me. I didn’t think Paul liked me.”

The very enthusiastic star of Boardwalk Empire (not to mention wannabe star of Marvel’s unofficially-announced Black Panther movie) said he wasn’t used to Anderson’s directorial style, especially having just come from the set of a TV production the day prior where they really “crack the whip”.

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Joaquin Phoenix Still Doesn’t Like To Talk                                             

Just like at last year’s post-screening Q&A’s for The Immigrant (2013) and Her (2013), Phoenix sat up the front looking annoyed and didn’t say a word. Why he bothered to even get out of bed I’m not sure — but given how grumpy I was to have awoken at 6am to watch a movie I didn’t even like, I have to agree with the sentiment.

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Inherent Vice is released in Australia on February 5, 2015.

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Glenn Dunks is a freelance writer from Melbourne who is currently based in New York City. He tweets from @glenndunks.

Feature image of Paul Thomas Anderson, Owen Wilson, Joaquin Phoenix, and Adam Somner, by Michael Loccisano for Getty.