Inherent Vice

Inherent Vice is a long, drug addled, shaggy dog story of an investigation by a Los Angeles PI, on behalf of his ex-girlfriend. While there is an almost constant female voice over the plot is not easy to follow and in fact I'm not convinced that it does make sense. Afterwards, given the ubiquitous drug use in the film, I wondered if the narrator was reliable.

The setting is the early 1970s (probably during Nixon's 1972 election campaign) and the film captures that time stylishly and makes it look very exotic when viewed from 2015.

There are a few (too few) well executed comic scenes linked together by a kaleidoscope of sub plots. In fact by the end it seems like the whole story is a series of almost unrelated sub plots linked together by one or two major characters. If there was a point, I missed it.

Some other reviewers suggest watching this film multiple times but I'm unlike to invest the time to verify this -- the trailer is worth seeing though (4 stars for that).

Ian's rating 2/5, Anne's rating 1/5