‘Inherent Vice’ — The First and Last Thomas Pynchon Movie?

Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson is the director of the film Inherent Vice, based on the 2009 novel of the same name by author Thomas Pynchon. Joaquin Phoenix plays Doc Sportello, a private investigator in 1970 Los Angeles. His ex-girlfriend (Katherine Waterston) is involved with a married man, property developer (Eric Roberts). Doc is also hired by a former junkie (Jena Malone) to find her missing husband (Owen Wilson). Paranoia and marijuana run wild.

Inherent Vice is the first Pynchon movie. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker suspects it’ll be the last. While Anderson stays loyal to Pynchon’s vision, Anderson’s audience won’t be “overjoyed to realize, around the ninety-minute mark, just how little of Inherent Vice is going to be wrapped up nice and neat.”