A recent article from The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Joaquin Phoenix will be starring in a new Paul Thomas Anderson film titled Inherent Vice.
Based on Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 novel, Inherent Vice follows a 1969-70 pot-smoking detective in Los Angeles as he takes up a kidnapping case. In true Los Angeles fashion, the story is a noir with such quirky characters as Shasta Fay Hepworth, Riggs Warbling, Japonica Fenway and Adrian Prussia.
Joaquin Phoenix is up for a best actor Oscar for his performance in The Master, which was also directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Like Inherent Vice, The Master was a period piece and also featured a slew of quirky characters (the film is loosely based on the origins of Scientology, after all). Anderson’s work has always inspired mass critical appeal, and there’s no reason to believe Inherent Vice will not naturally follow suit.
Joaquin Phoenix’s return to the big screen was marked with The Master. The young actor went on a brief hiatus after 2008’s Two Lovers, a period of time in which he masqueraded as a professional rapper alongside Casey Affleck (see: I’m Still Here). Before that time, however, Phoenix enjoyed an array of success in such films as Walk the Line, The Village, Signs, Hotel Rwanda and Gladiator. Needless to say, The Master marked a welcome return.
Hopefully, Inherent Vice will only be the second film in a long line of successes for both Anderson and Phoenix. The famed director has been trying to get his adapted screenplay off the ground for the past few years, at one time having Robert Downey Jr. attached to the project. One can only hope that Joaquin Phoenix sticks around and the film is ultimately made.