FILM / Inherent Vice: A Story of Experience / Austin Nichols
Image © Warner Bros. Pictures
Inherent Vice (2014) is the first true adaptation of a written work by director and screenwriter Paul Thomas Anderson. The movie is based on the novel of the same name by celebrated author Thomas Pynchon. It’s set in Los Angeles shortly after the Manson murders, and much of the movie focuses on the paranoia that stemmed from those events. It’s challenging to describe the plot as it’s centered around a multi-layered conspiracy theory, but it's essentially a private investigator’s journey through a case where one man is murdered, a prominent and wealthy man is kidnapped, and the private investigator’s ex-girlfriend disappears.
The film is arguably Anderson’s worst received, with much of the criticism centering around the relative incoherence of the story. This is a fair point to make against the movie. The series of events are extremely hard to follow and the movie seems to contradict itself a number of times with an end result of everything somehow being true. It’s very easy for a viewer to forget the series of events that led to a certain scene, or even to understand how the current scene fits into the overall narrative.
This is because the movie is told as a series of experiences instead of a series of events. The goal of the film isn’t to tell an interesting private detective mystery, but rather have the audience share the experiences of the main character Doc (Joaquin Phoenix). The movie makes small moves to inform the audience that it’s trying to tell experiences by inserting multiple events that are likely not real. Near the beginning of the film, the character Doc watches a commercial that speaks directly to him. It’s very unlikely that a commercial was recorded to speak to Doc directly, so the movie is telling the audience it’s trying to tell Doc’s experience.
There are less obvious ways the movie does this. A little bit further into the movie, there is a conversation between Doc and a character named Hope Harlingen (Jena Malone). Hope hands Doc a picture that showed the state of her daughter after she’d been drinking breast milk with heroin in it. Doc’s reaction to looking at the picture is to scream, however the movie makes it seem like Doc didn’t really scream as Hope didn’t react to it at all. The scream was just Doc’s internal experience to seeing the photo. The movie uses subtler techniques to let you know you are watching experiences. As a P.I., Doc takes notes during interviews, but all the notes he is shown to write don’t seem relevant. They are things like, “something Spanish,” or, “paranoia check.” The only thing these notes serve as is a check on Doc’s current experience.
There are two ways that Anderson makes a better movie by telling it as a series of experiences. The first is how the mode of storytelling really allows for the theme of paranoia to be driven home. There are multiple conversations that play out in a way that makes the audience feel more confused and entangled in a mess with Doc. The movie continuously gives both Doc and the audience more questions than answers.
An example of this is a conversation between Doc and a marine lawyer named Sauncho Smilax (Benicio Del Toro). The topic of the conversation is the history of a boat named the Golden Fang. Sauncho begins explaining things to Doc outdoors, but the conversation quickly transitions to inside a restaurant. When the characters first get to the restaurant the scene is shot with both characters in frame. As the conversation continues, the camera pulls closer and closer into the characters until their faces consume most of the screen. In addition to the camera work, the characters continue to lean in towards one of another and begin speaking in quieter voices. They even take a break from the conversation when the waitress stops by their table.
If the main focus of the audience shifts from the contents of the conversation to Doc’s experiences, this is a very powerful scene. As the shots get tighter and the characters get closer to one another, the viewer feels privy to an incredibly important and secret conversation. When the waitress comes and Doc and Sauncho pull back, the audience finds themselves believing that everybody should be considered dangerous, no matter how inconspicuous they seem. When viewing the scene through the lens of Doc’s experience, the feeling of paranoia is overwhelming. This is only one of many scenes that creates this effect.
The second way in which telling a story of experiences makes this movie excellent is how it allows the audience to learn significant lessons with Doc. There are two scenes in particular that play out this effect. The first scene has to do with the way Doc remembers his ex-girlfriend, Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston). Part of the case that sets the narrative in motion is Shasta disappearing, and while Doc is focused on the murder, kidnapping, and other parts of the case, Doc’s main motivation in investigating is to bring Shasta back.
While Shasta is missing she manages to send Doc a postcard that mentions a day they shared when they were still together. The scene that follows Doc receiving the postcard is a fairly standard flashback where a man is remembering a day he got caught in the rain with a woman he loves.
There are two important additions to the scene that make you truly feel Doc’s experience. The first is how it cuts from the flashback to Doc in the present day. In the scene, Doc is alone in a dark room completely transfixed on the postcard, seemingly trying to find any hint he can. This shot makes it clear how much Doc has isolated himself. He is completely alone. The second addition is the use of the song Journey Through the Past by Neil Young. Although this song is relatively short, it communicates how lonely the experience of living in the past is. It tells the story of man that is wondering if someone he spends much of his time thinking about even thinks about him at all.
The next important scene comes later in the movie, after Doc has a short reunion with Shasta. In this scene Doc is talking to his friend Sortilège (Joanna Newsom) about how he doesn’t know what his next steps should be. In this scene Doc is holding the postcard that Shasta sent him while she was missing. In order to resolve his issue of what he should do next, Sortilège asks Doc what’s going to keep him up at night. Doc answers he would be upset if a man he knows remains separated from his family. The man, named Coy Harlingen (Owen Wilson), had faked his death and joined a shadow organization that is part of the overall conspiracy theory of the movie. The man regrets his decision, but the powers that be won’t let him leave the organization and go home. From that point forward, Doc’s main focus shifts from reuniting with Shasta to helping Coy return to his wife and daughter.
If you watch these two scenes through the lens of Doc’s experience, you learn things not explicitly mentioned on screen. Going to the scene with the postcard, the shots of Doc in the present and the use of Journey Through the Past show you how lonely Doc is, and the audience learns how lonely it is to live in the past, as nobody can be in your memories with you. The scene in which Doc decides to help Coy shows an important shift from focusing on the past to focusing on the present. There is no promise to Doc saying his life will be as good as it was with Shasta if he helps Coy. What Doc has learned is that even if the present will never be good as the past was, he owes it to himself to make today as good as it can be. The way the movie shows Doc’s experiences allows the audience to learn this with Doc.
Inherent Vice is undoubtedly a narrative mess, and anyone that tries to follow it will find themselves lost. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be valued. Paul Thomas Anderson simply brings an atypical approach to telling a story. To watch this movie is more to absorb than to consume. The audience needs to experience the main character, not observe him. If an audience member approaches the movie this way, they will likely find it to be excellent.
Austin Nichols is a 29 year-old engineer living in Lake Jackson, TX. He primarily grew up in Louisiana and Virginia, but has lived in Texas since he was eighteen. In 2015, he graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and has since worked for The Dow Chemical Company ensuring the safe design of piping systems.
