Warner Bros.Paul Thomas Anderson's latest movie arrived with more of a whimper than a bang, and it's not difficult to see why this was met with a lukewarm reception earlier this year. Deliberately obtuse and often feeling impenetrable, Inherent Vice is as enigmatic as you'd expect from a movie based on the work of Thomas Pynchon. Joaquim Phoenix stars as private investigator Larry "Doc" Sportello, tasked with looking into a plot to have someone committed to an insane asylum but soon enough realising that the plot threads run a weaving and tangled course around one another. Like The Big Sleep, Inherent Vice is a mystery which isn't meant to be solved but rather marveled at for its illogical complexity. Phoenix is joined by an exceptional supporting cast including Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Bencio del Toro and newcomer Katherine Waterston, while Anderson's direction creates a heady atmosphere of early 70s America on the cusp of a new era of darkness and confusion, still hung over from the party atmosphere of the psychedelic 60s.
