Delayed Reaction: The Long Goodbye

Premise: A Philip Marlow P.I. story with a 70s sensibility.

 

Paul Thomas Anderson watched The Long Goodbye before developing Inherent Vice, right? It's too obvious to even check. It's like he watched The Long Goodbye then thought "OK, that, but weirder". Because, The Long Goodbye is pretty weird and is itself a response to an earlier kind of movie. It's a Philip Marlowe movie. You might remember that character from The Big Sleep among several other films of the Film Noir era. Only, the story was updated for the 70s and cast a less likely star in Elliot Gould.

 

The Long Goodbye doesn't take itself more seriously than it absolutely must. Gould's Marlowe gives a running commentary throughout the movie of the different absurdities in his day. It's a very unique lead performance. Gould sounds exhausted with everything throughout the movie. I wouldn't say the performance is particularly charismatic, but I did want to keep following him around.

 

I didn't realize that was a Robert Altman movie. I suppose that I can see some of him in the movie, however it didn't have the overlapping dialogue and ensembles that I'm used to. I'm starting to appreciate his filmography though.

 

Another movie this reminded me a lot of, perhaps even more than Inherent Vice, is The Nice Guys. I've said this once and I'll say it again: I think I'm just a sucker for crime stories in this time period; especially when set in L.A. It's interesting to see that this extends to movies actually made in that era and not just films made 40 years after the fact.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend