For almost anyone who sees it, this movie is going to be love it or hate it. And like most things that are “love it or hate it,” I felt strangely neutral to it. It’s set in 1970, and is really about the exact moment the freewheeling 60’s began to morph into the scuzzy, Nixonian paranoia of the 70’s, and the entire point is that things were not easy to classify or pin-down, and that’s true for the movie itself…which seems to take near-pride in being hard to follow. And that’s something that’s artistically admirable but not entirely enjoyable.
What Works: A who’s-who cast has been assembled and they’re all clearly enjoying grooving on the sunnily nostalgic acid-trip vibes of an era that most of the cast is too young to really remember. I particularly enjoyed Josh Brolin as a slyly fascist “square” cop who’s maybe not as square as he first appears. The movie is set the year after the Manson murders and nails the suspicious culture of police at that time who saw every California hippie as a potential cult member. It’s not so hard to see the foreshadowing of the neo-con movement and how they view liberals as a threat to stability.
There are also several laugh-out-loud hilarious moments sprinkled in every so often, and this is the most comedic film Paul Thomas Anderson has made since Punch Drunk Love. You get the sense that he really wanted to lighten up after “The Master” and “There Will Be Blood.” Maybe that’s why he seems to enjoy the odd-couple pairing of Josh Brolin’s cop and Joaquin Phoenix’s hippie private investigator as much as we do.
What Doesn’t: Just being honest with you: I’m not sure I really followed everything that was going on. Maybe I’m not as smart as I like to think, maybe I was seriously wanting to eat something, maybe it was because I had a horrible seat in the front row, or maybe, juuuuuust maybe it’s because this a film that’s been made all-too-deliberately hard to follow and isn’t really enjoyable for that reason. The more it keeps going on, the more we have to strain to follow all the red-herrings and side characters, but it also becomes evident that the end result may not be worth all the effort. It’s a very complex plot for what is—essentially—an insubstantial stroll through an Elmore Leonard story on LSD. It’s a film with more set-up than payoff.
And I was momentarily thrilled that Martin Short had been given what seems like a juicy supporting role that would test the dramatic chops he displayed so well on “Damages,” but (like all too many of the film’s brief, flashy characters) he quickly disappears before he really gets to do anything.
What I Would Have Done Differently: I am a little embarrassed to admit that I’ve never actually read a Thomas Pynchon novel, so I have no idea how faithful Paul Thomas Anderson is to the source material and maybe he has nailed the tone of it. Maybe the better question is whether the book should have been adapted at all? I look at this mostly as a great way for P.T. to recharge his batteries, and maybe get some stuff out of his system, and then make something terrific the next time out.