Inherent Vice is an experimental novel from Thomas Pynchon and was the first and only book of his to be adapted onto the big screen with Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2014 film of the same name. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Inherent Vice is a faithful retelling of the Pynchon story with characters that embody their novelized counterparts to a tee that when reading the book I was able to envision all the actors in their parts, a feat that rarely ever occurs. Like the book, the film is incredibly hard to follow with names and characters being introduced to the audience every five minutes and a story that is so convoluted it makes The Big Lebowski easier to follow. Unlike the film, the story is told from an unknown third-person where as the film takes the liberty in using Sortilege, one of the side-players in the book, to narrate the story and is possibly a part of the conscious mind of Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello. With the main character, Doc being a heavy drug user, using everything from marijuana to cocaine, the thought f him suffering from Doper’s Memory is brought up several times in the novel as well as the film, which may result in us seeing his hallucinations. It’s a trope that is used many of times in the film and one that causes confusion when things go awry. It’s nowhere near the hallucinations of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but it’s subtle enough to illicit a thought of whether or not the scene we just saw really took place or if Doc was envisioning it through “green” colored specks.
Pulling straight from Film Noir’s, Inherent Vice hits all the bases: a lonely, lowly detective (in this case Private Investigator) trying to uncover a murder or disappearance, a femme fatale that weaves in and out of the story, a conspiracy of some sort the detective is unknowingly walking into, and an internal monolog, or understanding of what’s going on inside the head of the main protagonist. Inherent Vice is also a slapstick comedy with sprinkles of a stoner cult film thrown in. Joaquin Phoenix’s Doc Sportello is thrown into whacky situations too far gone from reality resulting in an almost absurdist reality. Add in the pot smoking and (occasional) cocaine use, and you have a film that plays closer to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas than The Big Lebowski, without the surrealism.
Inherent Vice isn’t about the story of a private investigator searching for his ex-girlfriend, nor is it about the downward spiral one goes through when using heavy drugs. The film is allegorical in nature, lifting from teachings of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in over-coming a death of a loved one or the erosion of a close relationship. Inherent Vice is a metaphor for the loss of a loved one and how that grief manifests itself in our minds.
The five steps of grief are Depression, Bargaining, Denial, Anger, and, finally, Acceptance. Doc Sportello, being the heavy drug user he is, suffers from the inability to distinguish from reality and hallucinations. Doc is seen multiple times figuring out if the conversation he’s having is real by jotting down details in his notepad or by slapping himself into reality. For the times he’s not nose deep into his notepad, the conversation goes astray if only for a little bit. Take the conversation he has with Hope Harlingen 30 minutes into the film.
Inherent vice (2014)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, director of photography Robert Elswit.
Warner bros. Productions, IAC films
His screaming at the photo of Amethyst and hearing Hope teach kids about using drugs responsibly are just a couple indications Doc is suffering from a high at that point. The mirroring of Bigfoot and Doc is astonishing that by the end of the film both characters seem to merge into one another, further complicating things but also bringing Doc’s hallucinations into play. If Doc is projecting onto Bigfoot (or vice versa) then the possibility is open to project, or hallucinate, other characters in the Inherent Vice universe. In fact, we could go as far as saying Doc and the rest of the cast of colorful characters don’t exist.
Before we go any further, let’s dive into the meaning of inherent vice. In the film it’s described as “anything you can’t avoid.”
According to the opening lines of Wikipedia, inherent vice is the deterioration of physical objects due to their inferior build and not by the interaction of any third party or outside action. This lends credit to Doc’s mental breakdown, or hallucinations, due to his continued use of drugs and his spiral into mourning the loss of a loved one.
Inherent vice (2014)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, director of photography Robert Elswit.
Warner bros. Productions, IAC films
Inherent Vice takes place in the fictional town of Gordita Beach, a substitute for Manhattan Beach, where Thomas Pynchon lived during 1969 and 1970, a section of Los Angeles. Charles Manson and the family, which are referred to multiple times in the film and novel, planned to start a race war with the murders of Roman Polanski’s then wife Sharon Tate, whom was eight months pregnant, as well as Abigail Folger, Jay Sebring, Wojeciech Frykowski, and Steven Parent. The Family wrote ‘pig’ on a wall using Tate’s blood trying to incite a race war between whites and blacks, specifically the Black Panthers. The very next night other members of the family killed the owner of a grocery store chain as well as his wife. Using their blood, they also wrote ‘pig’ and other phrases continuing their mission in trying to incite a race war. The paranoia going through LA, especially with celebrities, was astounding. Crooner Frank Sinatra was in hiding while Steve McQueen would drive around LA at night with a gun in the front seat. Everyone was on high alert, though celebrities may have thought they were the initial targets of The Family’s brutality.
Inherent vice (2014)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, director of photography Robert Elswit.
Warner bros. Productions, IAC films
There’s a point in the film where a cop stops Doc driving with three other people; the reasoning being a possible cult gathering, mounting to the Mansonoid conspiracy talked about heavily in the book. In fact, the Family is even mentioned by Doc where he talks about Squeaky being cute yet so deadly. One scene in the book Doc asks Tariq if he could find him a Leslie van Houten shirt. The divisiveness depicted in the novel is more nuanced than paranoia in the film. Thomas Pynchon’s novel presents two sides to the Family, one that is paranoid, which is mainly the ones who are supposed to be in control, i.e. the ones in power like cops, the other side of that coin are the dope smoking hippies like Doc who liken them as a celebrities in their own right.
In this cloud of smoke lays the raw grief of someone effected by the deaths, whether experienced first-hand or from the perspective of one, and the process in which they must go through to become whole again.
Part of that process is anger, which is exhibited by Christian “Bigfoot” Bjornson almost exclusively. Every scene Bigfoot is in he’s kicking Doc while he’s down, slamming his fists against his desk in agitation, or just yelling to get his point across. For example, take the ‘Moto Panakako’ scene about 90 minutes in.
Inherent vice (2014)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, director of photography Robert Elswit.
Warner bros. Productions, IAC films
Bjornson goes from divulging about suspects that may be involved in the [faux] death of saxophone player Coy Harlingen to expressing his discontent with the lack of work for roles in Hollywood to his outburst, mainly in frustration about a dead dentist with puncture wounds in his neck. This is the most gradual swing in emotions for him but one of the few scenes where his mood swings harshly from stable to anger in a matter of seconds. Kübler-Ross’s model of grief indicates that anger may manifest itself in various forms in different people. She goes on to explain the anger that people feel when in grief can be directed towards themselves or towards those close to them. We see anger directed towards Doc in a variety of scenes throughout the film. Bjornson, we learn late in the film, is seeing a doctor to reduce his stress and anger caused to him by Doc.
Depression is the next step when overcoming grief. While no one in the book or film go through such an extreme emotion, the underlying emotions are there with Doc. According to National Institute for Mental Health, there are five subsections of depression. The subset that closely adheres to Doc’s state is Psychotic Depression. Psychotic depression occurs when an individual suffers from depression but also has an underlying form of psychosis, such as hallucinating about what they hear and what they see. Typically a person suffering from this form of depression may have a recurring theme to their delusions, like death or guilt. Refer back to the meeting with Hope relatively early in the film, he’s in a state where what we hear and we see may not be what is truly happening. Another example is when Doc meets with Clancy Charlock in his office.
Doc’s conversation with Clancy is skewed based our inability to grasp if the information we’re hearing as the audience is what Clancy is really saying. The slap Doc is struck with may not have actually happened but the lack of any red mark indicates Doc maybe delusional at that point. Doper’s ESP is mentioned quite often in the film and novel and we do not give a second thought about why; we assume it’s Doc’s drug rattled brain. Yet when Sortilege disappears and reappears between scenes without indication if Doc is high, we can arrive to the conclusion that Doc is suffering from psychotic depression. A symptom of the depression is the inability to keep focus at the task at hand, a trait we see Doc go through. His main focus is trying to locate Michael Wolfmann and uncover the true reasons why his wife has made him disappear. While we eventually learn of his whereabouts and the intentions of his wife, the route of getting there is a long, arduous one complete with detours such as, Coy, the Golden Fang, and learning who killed Glen Charlock.
When we first meet Doc, he’s staring out the window, a motif used throughout the film. Every other blank stare for Doc results in him reminiscing about the beauty of Shasta Fay Hepworth. Many who suffer from depression may begin to use drugs as a coping method when dealing with the loss of someone close to them.
But as the film is drawing closer to the end, Doc is seen using cocaine as well as an LSD, PCP laced marijuana cigarette, which knocks him unconscious. When he wakes he fights for his life trying to avoid a needle laced with un-stepped on heroin that would kill him. He fights his way to avoid that route and even has to bargain for the life of Coy Harlingen with a sizable load of heroin, which leads us to –
Bargaining, the next step in the grieving process. According to the Kübler-Ross model bargaining is the negotiation of an extended life for the person perished or a renewal of a relationship. In the novel, Doc visits Las Vegas to learn more about the deal of someone opening up a casino under Michael Wolfmann’s name on the Vegas strip. He gets tangled into a bet with loan sharks whom are betting over the reasoning for Mickey Wolfmann’s disappearance. At this point in time Doc already knows the whereabouts of Wolfmann and how he was placed in Chryskylodon, so he places a bet, eventually earning a large sum of cash by the very end of the novel. In the film (as well as the book) Doc comes into contact with Crocker Fenway, whom is in charge with Coy’s staging of his overdose as well as the heroin shipments coming in from the Golden Fang. Fenway agrees to give Doc a sum of cash to return some of his un-stepped on heroin. Instead, Doc bargains for the life of Coy Harlingen, a trade Fenway is stunned to hear being made and one that is swiftly done in a matter of moments.
Inherent vice (2014)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, director of photography Robert Elswit.
Warner bros. Productions, IAC films
All this leads to acceptance. According to Kübler-Ross, acceptance is the final stage in the grieving process where individuals may “embrace mortality,” finally accepting life, or that specific relationship, as it’s presented, with an expiration date. Accepting the erosion of a relationship or a death in the family doesn’t entirely mean they are happy, that individual just understands the gravity of the situation. In the film, Hope denies the loss of Coy, her junkie husband and hires the help of Doc to prove her suspicions. Doc is very much in the same predicament as his client with Shasta. At the hearing that Shasta might be missing (or dead based on Bigfoot’s wordings), Doc denies such thing until he’s visited by Shasta late night at his home in fictional Gordita beach wearing what he was used to her wearing: bottom half of a flower print bikini and a faded Country Joe and the Fish T-shirt. In the beginning of the film he’s visited by her in a button down dress, something he’d never thought she would ever wear. She tells him about the plan to kidnap her new beau. When Doc dives deeper and deeper into the world of Wolfmann, he comes to learn of his fetishes, his desires, all in the physical form of painted ties, as well as the company he keeps. So by the end of the film when she returns, she describes to him the horrors of her relationship with Wolfmann, describing everything he’s done to her as well as her being passed around and the damage she has as a result.
Both Doc and Hope share many of the same traits regarding their chasing of the white rabbit, yet Doc falls further into the rabbit hole than Hope. For Coy, Doc exchanges drugs, and his respect, for his life, resulting in a clean slate. Coy, up to this point, has been living as an informant, playing every side he was forced to play. Crocker accepts Doc’s deal and frees Coy from his debts with a few caveats. Coy accepts his new life and begins a new version of his old life with Hope and Amethyst. Coy was able, with the help of others, to break free from the chains of death and live life again with Hope, whom also enlisted some help to do the same.
For Doc and Shasta, sex is the ultimate acceptance.
Inherent vice (2014)
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, director of photography Robert Elswit.
Warner bros. Productions, IAC films
Or rather that final scene of the film is the most telling. In the finale of the book, Doc is cruising through the fog in his car yearning to find something new in the commotion of his case or in California all together. In the film he’s driving with Shasta, with her telling him Sortilege knows more about them than they themselves and being the one who possibly set them up to be a couple using a Ouija board. The final two scenes with Doc and Shasta come across as someone coming to terms with a lost loved one. His sex with Shasta after her pouring her heart out, explaining her troubles with Wolfmann is him coming to terms with that. His callback to her at the very end of the film doesn’t just show he’s joking or being playful, he’s relinquishing his desire and his journey to continue to search for her no more.
For Doc, the journey to find Shasta again was the ultimate test of perseverance as well as finally coming to terms with his grief. At the very end of the novel, with Doc driving through the fog trying to find meaning in his existence, that is Doc suffering from inherent vice. There is no closure for Doc; he has passed the point of no return having deteriorated from his own grief. Anderson takes some artistic liberties with the end of the film. Doc is seen driving with Shasta riding arm in tow. Atlantis, a motif in the novel, is touched upon at the very end.
Shasta’s description of feeling like she was being held under water and transported to a new world is her describing her transition from living to dead, or vice versa. Both endings are ambiguous with Pynchon’s version ending more bleak; Anderson adapts this ambiguity well but with a lighter tone. Doc may not have found the right solution but it was one he agreed with. The ending may be open-ended but Anderson injects enough bliss for Doc and Shasta that we’re left with an understanding of their happiness to not question their journey onward.
