Synopsis
In Los Angeles at the turn of the 1970s, drug-fueled detective Larry "Doc" Sportello investigates the disappearance of an ex-girlfriend.
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Cast
- Joaquin PhoenixLarry "Doc" Sportello
- Josh BrolinLt. Det. Christian F. "Bigfoot" Bjornsen
- Owen WilsonCoy Harlingen
- Katherine WaterstonShasta Fay Hepworth
- Reese WitherspoonDeputy D.A. Penny Kimball
- Benicio del ToroSauncho Smilax
- Jena MaloneHope Harlingen
- Joanna NewsomSortilège
- Jordan Christian HearnDenis
- Hong ChauJade
Recommendations
- 100
The Telegraph
The film is stupendous: as antic as Boogie Nights and Punch-Drunk Love, but with The Master and There Will Be Blood’s uncanny feel for the swell and ebb of history. - 100
Hitfix
This movie is so funny, so strange, so wonderfully charmingly deranged. - 100
Variety
Anderson’s seventh feature film is a groovy, richly funny stoner romp that has less in common with “The Big Lebowski” than with the strain of fatalistic, ’70s-era California noirs (“Chinatown,” “The Long Goodbye,” “Night Moves”) in which the question of “whodunit?” inevitably leads to an existential vanishing point. - 100
Slant Magazine
The dangers of filmmakers trying to replicate a golden era rather than embrace the present are part and parcel of Inherent Vice, but the ramifications are political as well. - 83
IndieWire
Inherent Vice constantly teases at a complex meta commentary on the other movies it brings to mind, but never totally gets there. - 83
The Playlist
Big, wonderfully oddball, sometimes confounding and beautiful, Inherent Vice supplies good dosages of stoner giggles. But its doobage is potent and reflects some heavy ideas you’ll need to unpack and meditate on for a long while. - 80
The Guardian
Anderson has all manner of fun with the tale's whirling, blurring trajectory. His film is like a jubilant spin painting in which the characters have been scattered and splattered to the furthest reaches of the frame. - 80
Time Out
Inherent Vice, Anderson's sexy, swirling latest (based on Thomas Pynchon's exquisite stoner mystery set at the dawn of the '70s), is a wondrously fragrant movie, emanating sweat, the stink of pot clouds and the press of hairy bodies. It's a film you sink into, like a haze on the road, even as it jerks you along with spikes of humor.
