Excitingly, this fall’s New York Film Festival will see the debuts of not one but two of this year’s most viable Oscar contenders, with word that Paul Thomas Anderson’s thriller Inherent Vice has nabbed the festival’s centerpiece slot. Last week, we reported that David Fincher’s hotly anticipated murder mystery adaptation Gone Girl would open the festival, and now it appears that cinephiles have yet another huge reason to attend.
It’s curious that two huge titles have been announced so quickly for NYFF – typically, the Telluride International Film Festival (TIFF) announces its title before NYFF and attracts bigger names. Regardless, it’s exciting to have confirmation of the movie’s premiere, given how little we’d heard about it up until this point.
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, the 1960s-set Inherent Vice, an adaptation of the inscrutable detective novel by Thomas Pynchon, centers on “an inept stoner detective who uncovers a larger conspiracy as he begins to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend in Los Angeles.” It’s said to take place “against the backdrop of Venice beach bums, surfers and acid heads” and be similar plot-wise to a Raymond Chandler novel. Given that Anderson, the acclaimed but difficult filmmaker behind The Master and There Will Be Blood, is sitting behind the camera, visual and narrative complexity is to be expected. Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon, Jena Malone, Joanna Newsom, Benicio del Toro, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short and Eric Roberts all co-star.
In an official statement, NYFF Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones voiced his enthusiasm for the movie, explaining:
“Every new Paul Thomas Anderson movie is an event, an experience – when the lights come up, you feel like you’ve been somewhere, and come back with your mind altered. Inherent Vice is a journey through the past, bringing the texture of the early 70s SoCal counterculture back to full blown life. It’s a wildly funny, deeply soulful, richly detailed, and altogether stunning movie.”
After premiering at NYFF, Inherent Vice opens in limited release December 12th then expands wide on January 9th next year.
