Screened as part of NZIFF 2015

Inherent Vice 2014

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson World

“Paul Thomas Anderson has taken Thomas Pynchon’s novel about the death of the hippie counterculture and turned it, reasonably faithfully, into a surreally funny, anxious and beautiful film noir.” — The Telegraph

Aug 09

The Regent Theatre Dunedin

Aug 10

The Regent Theatre Dunedin

USA In English
149 minutes DCP

Producers

JoAnne Sellar
,
Daniel Lupi
,
Paul Thomas Anderson

Screenplay

Paul Thomas Anderson. Based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon

Photography

Robert Elswit

Editor

Leslie Jones

Production designer

David Crank

Costume designer

Mark Bridges

Music

Jonny Greenwood

With

Joaquin Phoenix (Doc Sportello)
,
Josh Brolin (Bigfoot Bjornsen)
,
Owen Wilson (Coy Harlingen)
,
Katherine Waterston (Shasta Fay Hepworth)
,
Reese Witherspoon (Penny Kimball)
,
Benicio Del Toro (Sauncho Smilax)
,
Martin Short (Dr Blatnoyd)
,
Jena Malone (Hope Harlingen)
,
Joanna Newsom (Sortilège)
,
Hong Chau (Jade)
,
Maya Rudolph (Petunia Leeway)
,
Sasha Pieterse (Japonica Fenway)
,
Michael Kenneth Williams (Tariq Khalil)
,
Jeannie Berlin (Aunt Reet)

Festivals

New York 2014
,
Rotterdam 2015

NZIFF puts Paul Thomas Anderson’s inspired adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s novel onto New Zealand cinema screens at last. Joaquin Phoenix is woozily perfect as stoned LA beach bum and private investigator Doc Sportello, lured by his ex into a missing person enquiry that’s richly evocative in every detail, and, like many a noir before it, evocatively incomprehensible in toto. Prime yourself just to soak up the good – and bad – vibrations, and you may find Inherent Vice addictive.

“Phoenix and the terrific acting ensemble that joins him in this pot-infused 70s-era beach noir create such a good buzz you can almost get a contact high from watching. A sprawling cast is required for the many vices and various intrigues, with Josh Brolin, Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Jena Malone and Martin Short as its core, plus Katherine Waterston, actor Sam’s daughter, as the pivotal femme fatale… Trying to pare back Pynchon without killing the joke was the challenge. Anderson has done a remarkable job of replicating the crazy kaleidoscope of crime, dope and raunch the novelist conjured. It is a densely detailed cultural polyglot of real estate machinations, Aryan Brotherhood bikers, dental scams, sex, drugs, dope smoking, detectives and dames.” — Betsy Sharkey, LA Times

“It is obvious by now that Paul Thomas Anderson isn’t making individual movies so much as building an oeuvre block by block – the sturdiest, most resilient body of work by a bigtime American director since Stanley Kubrick died and Martin Scorsese ran out of steam.” — J. Hoberman, Artforum