Inherent Vice felt like a dazed, hungover walk down a Californian beach during the care-free hippie era of the 1970s, a place that is in reality so distant and unknown to me, but equally a place that feels like home after watching the film. An ambience of warmth and tranquility quite literally oozes from the screen with the vibrant and psychedelic colors, the relaxing background score running behind the scenes, the spot-on costumes or the soothing voice of the anonymous narrator. Similarly to Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name, I felt plunged in a small world I did not want to leave.

The film starts by exposing an intriguing plot line, but as the plot progresses and as new characters are constantly unveiled, you start to understand that maybe the film leans more towards prioritizing character and thematic development over conventional narration. Nonetheless, this is not at all detrimental to the main story (arguably stories), which ends up more or less concluded, but here the film really just deviates our attention from the events of plot to the intricacies of the characters and the "bigger picture" idea of Inherent Vice conveyed by its themes.

The character of Larry "Doc" Sportello, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is introduced as an unstable, stoned, wrecked detective, trapped between alleged hallucinations and reality. Yet throughout the film his behavior and personality fluctuate between that of a junkie and that of an elegant, well-dressed detective, just to return back to his original hippie lifestyle at the end of the film. Doc's romantic relationships also seem to mirror this same pattern: we learn in the beginning of the film that he used to be romantically involved with Shasta Fay Hepworth, a woman seemingly living a similar lifestyle to himself. However, during the majority of the film, Doc is involved with Penny Kimball, a professional, stuck-up district attorney, just to return back to Shasta Fay in the end as she surprisingly reappears.

This pattern is found numerous times in this film, perhaps to show, more globally, the difficulty of a change of era, a change of lifestyle. The slow rise of modern America in the 1970s, in contrast with the periods of protests and political movements of the 1960s sought after by the hippies shown in Inherent Vice, and the hardship faced by many during this period of transition, is perhaps what is shown through the characters; we try to adapt to change, but in the end we solely wish to return to what feels comfortable, to what truly feels like home. Doc's constant rebellion against authority, independent lifestyle and ostracism from society and its norms is the fight of a generation, the desperate clinging onto a golden era that is being progressively erased by modernity.