Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights) has a rare track record. He’s released a mere six films over the past 20 years, but I consider all six to be masterpieces. His seventh film, Inherent Vice, is his first miss. 

It’s probably unfair to fault a film for not being a masterpiece. But when someone like Anderson makes a film that’s almost good, that’s just not enough.

Adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s novel, Inherent Vice stars Joaquin Phoenix as Doc, an eternally stoned private investigator in California in 1970. Doc investigates a case that leads him down a paranoid rabbit hole of hippie conspiracy theories, heroin-peddling secret societies and a vanished ex-girlfriend. 

As always, Anderson gets great performances from his ensemble cast. Phoenix and Josh Brolin have great chemistry as the yin and yang of Los Angeles detectives. Benicio del Toro underplays a craggy bit part that’s surprisingly perfect, and relative newcomer Hong Chau was a hilarious discovery for me. The mumbling, sweaty cast perfectly complement the film’s 1970s vibe, grainy film look and off-the-cuff camerawork.

 The plot is intentionally convoluted and impossible to follow. Anderson wants the audience to accept this and go along for the ride with Doc’s paranoid journey. Herein lies the film’s fatal flaw. 

Anderson wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants you to agonizingly ponder what’s real and what’s Doc’s hallucination. He asks the viewer to invest in Doc’s paranoia, to feel the gravity of this conspiracy, while simultaneously winking at the audience and saying, “But none of that really matters, so just giggle along.” 

But after he’s done such a good job of reminding me that none of this matters, I don’t see why I should care. It has no bearing on the film either way.

 Previous Anderson films have been satisfying thematic puzzles. Inherent Vice is puzzling, but that’s not enough to make me want to solve it.

Published in Volume 69, Number 17 of The Uniter (January 21, 2015)