Paul Thomas Anderson
Vizio di forma

At first, it was love at first sight with the poster featuring inspired colors and that Disco Stu-esque neon sign.

In the end, however, the cover was a real damn bitch.

Until some time ago, I wasn't really taken with Paul Thomas Anderson, maybe because I watched three or four films at the same pace as their release dates in the Greek Calends. Maybe it was age, maybe the not-so-bulging cultural pencil case, maybe just not that much interest. I definitely never even grasped its aesthetics, but thanks to the almighty lord, he got his hands on the film adaptation of this book here, and suddenly I have a new opportunity.

Three things above all: Joaquin Phoenix, the Seventies, the Direction. Those would be enough, but it's a film that overdelivers. With music, with irony, with color, with passion, it overdelivers.

The script turns your brain into an intestine, unrolls it, uses it as a balloon to make a puppy, and tells you here, now untie and redo. In fact, you have to get it into your head that not only are there almost one hundred and fifty minutes of unrolling and rolling, there's also the possibility that one (especially if rough) viewing (for appreciation, more than understanding) won't suffice, nor will two; three, yes, three are more than enough, what the hell.

Joaquin, or Doc, or Sportello, is a cop who receives a cry for help from his ex, Sashta: her current partner is a real estate magnate in Los Angeles, married to a woman who, along with her lover, plans to have the magnate committed for obvious reasons. A little beer, and Doc starts his investigation, the investigation of a pothead with a Lebowski-like drift (it's mandatory to go beyond the surface appearances).

Against the backdrop of a breathtaking photograph that smells of weed, on the edge of two eras, in the midst of a characteristic 70's talkative scenography, Inherent Vice sings: now you come with me. More inside a brain than inside a film. The "inherent vice" of the title (in the original "Inherent Vice") takes shape in the mind and extends into actions that one after the other constitute the pieces of a puzzle that no one intends to complete. I'll leave it there: no.