Inherent Vice (2014)

I’ve been occasionally surprised into liking some of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films, but this is not one of them. A middling Anderson work, it’s a convoluted hippie detective noir told from the perspective of Joaquin Phoenix’s perpetually stoned out detective. Initially asked by his ex-girlfriend to intercede in the abduction of her current lover, he is further embroiled in a conspiracy of sorts when he is hired out on two other cases. It seems to all comes clean in the end, at least for Phoenix and the cases he was hired to solve, but it’s not entirely clear as his perspective is definitely unreliable and I’m not even sure some of the characters weren’t figments of his imagination. 

Oscar Nominations: Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay; Best Achievement in Costume Design