INHERENT VICE

(Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)

It's rare these days that a film stays with me quite the way Inherent Vice has. Circling slowly in my brain, key scenes echoing, ambiguities illuminating, lines of dialogue repeating. It is a wonderful mess; a combination of pitch-black comedy, stoner slapstick, sly satire, grimy sunshine noir, and romantic drama. Anderson, it seems, can do anything, and here, in adapting the novel by Thomas Pynchon, he more or less abandons traditional plot in favour of an episodic series of encounters between Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix, brilliant as ever), a hippie P.I. in 1970 Long Beach and various eccentrics and personalities he encounters in the course of an investigation.
That investigation is for his ex-girlfriend (ex old-lady in the parlance of the film), Shasta (Katherine Waterston, glowing) who presents him with the disappearance of her current boyfriend, real estate mogul Wolfman (Eric Roberts), and involves him in a hilariously complex web of nazis, black power militants, loan sharks, surf horn players, smugglers, dentists and FBI men. Complicating this is the strange mutual dependence Doc and local police detective Bigfoot (Josh Brolin) share, his relationship with a horny Assistant D.A. (Reese Witherspoon), and the fact that he is clearly still in love with Shasta. That love - and the loss and regret with which is entwined - give the often idiosyncratic, distinctively odd encounters of much of the rest of the film a powerful resonance. Doc is hurting, wearing a baffled look of suffering, even as he trades quips with actors like Owen Wilson, Martin Short and Benicio Del Toro, and Anderson keeps the camera trained on Doc's face, allowing us to confront the darkness in Phoenix's work. It makes for a slightly claustrophobic, densely layered film, and the way all these characters mount up only increases that sense. Doc takes on another case - then another - and yet all three turn out to be related.
Much of this is narrated by his friend and earth mother, Sortilège (Joanna Newsome), who also seems to accompany him, in spirit at least, as he drives around L.A., and who appears to possess some sort of second sight.
Anderson's work here is subtle and restrained, classical and always effective, with few of the flourishes from his earlier work. He charms some exceptional performances from his cast. The standout is probably Brolin, who imbues Bigfoot with pathos and humour ("Moto panacuku!!" has been in my head for days now) and even a hint of tragedy. Waterston is also fantastic in her scenes; careful around Doc and trying to squash her own feelings, and yet, still, somehow, in a manner unique to this movie: a femme fatale.
That is the thing; I've never seen a movie quite so unique. You can see influences, but Inherent Vice has its own tone and register, its own rhythms and flow. And they are oddly bewitching. Doc and Shasta are at the heart of this film, their relationship, its dissolution, the damage it caused, and that is as true in the last scene as it is when we first meet her. The edge of pain running through that storyline gives Inherent Vice it's peculiar charge, and echoes the theme of the souring and death of the hippie dream.
That forgets the key to the film: it is so much fun. Hilarious, informative, provocative, sexy, it even ends with a scene of grimy, ugly violence, before immediately undercutting that with a joke about the situation.
A great film from a great filmmaker.

MUD

(Jeff Nichols, 2012)

Mud feels like an instant classic.
Nichols' third film gets so much right, and so little wrong, and it also presents a side to him not particularly evident in his first two movies; he now appears one of the leading talents in American cinema, with a fantastically broad range and formidable storytelling skills.
Those are easy to see in the first few scenes of Mud, especially in the effortless way he paints in this world. Here is the American South presented as a vivid, real place, in the form of a small town with all its drag strip bars and chain restaurants, contrasted with the life of the river which has an almost mythic presence within the film. Nichols is good on the subtle and obvious differences between the two. Our 14 year old hero, Ellis (Tye Sheridan, outstanding) lives and works on that river with his mother (Sarah Paulson) and fisherman father. Nichols uses the family to express the conflict between town and country. Parental marriage breakdown centres around Mom's desire to give life in town a try, while Ellis ("I ain't no townie!") wants to stay on the river and work with his dad, despite the attractions of the many girls in town.
The main plot revolves around a discovery Ellis and his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) make on a small island in the river. There's a boat hanging suspended in a tree, deposited there by a storm. And a man living in it. His name is Mud, and as played by Matthew McConaughey he is a silver-tongued charmer with a love of tall tails and a gospel delivery. He wears crosses on his boot heels, a pistol in his waistband, and is hiding after the murder of a man. He claims to be waiting to meet his girlfriend Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) and persuades the boys to bring him supplies, and, eventually, ferry messages to her. But there are sinister, armed men in town looking for him, State troopers setting up roadblocks in order to trap him, and his old friend and neighbour of Ellis (Sam Shepherd) says he's not to be trusted and the boys should stay away. But by then, of course, its already too late...
As a naturalistic portrait of adolescent male friendship, Mud is terrific; sensitive to the subtle nuances and unspoken bonds, never forced in the way it traces the quiet refusal of emotion boys specialise in. And it uses the mysterious forces driving adult lives to cast so much light on the world of Ellis and Neckbone; Ellis is a romantic, yearning for a girl in town, hopeful his parents will rediscover their love for one another despite his father's cynicism, and the story Mud tells him appeals to him because of its old-fashioned certainty about true love. Then we learn the truth about Mud and Juniper, and Ellis' heartbreak is shattering and almost visceral. Meanwhile Neckbone seems more pragmatic, guided by his loving but relaxed Uncle (Michael Shannon), until we realise that he will do more or less anything his friend asks of him.
Nichols has a nice eye and a superb gift for tone and place, but here those gifts appear to have been internalised. Instead, he realises to what extent this story is about faces, and he keeps his lens close to his cast throughout.
Despite the feeling of intense mounting suspense, then, there is enough time to delve into Mud as a character. Mud is a liar, yes, but his fantasising is always pointed and intriguing, and the audience feels as attracted to him as the two boys are.