’70s ‘Vice’ packs great book value

Somehow, “Inherent Vice” director Paul Thomas Anderson (“Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia”) and his upfor-anything lead, Joaquin Phoenix, have done the impossible. They’ve turned Thomas Pynchon’s work into a slapstick noir homage that doesn’t just reward but demands multiple viewings.

Consider that both high compliment and fair warning. And although an obscure German docudrama drew on some text from Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow,” this new movie is the first real film adaptation of Pynchon’s previously unfilmable fiction.

Phoenix’s extraordinary performance actually pulls the movie’s infinite strands together. But this twisty tale takes so many foggy turns that you may want to come back for another look.

The story is set in 1970 L.A. Our narrator (Joanna Newsom) describes these as “perilous times, astrologically speaking, for dopers.” That’s certainly true for Doc (Joaquin Phoenix), a private detective generally found in a chilled-out fog. He’s roused to unusual levels of action when his beautiful ex, Shasta Fay (Katherine Waterston), disappears.

She’s been dating a shady real estate mogul (Eric Roberts), and Doc is soon entangled in a web of illegal activities. He gets help from a disdainful cop (Josh Brolin), a deputy D.A. (Reese Witherspoon), some ex-junkies (Owen Wilson, Jena Malone) and his lawyer (Benicio Del Toro). But he also must contend with lots of villains, including a drug-running businessman (Martin Donovan) and a depraved dentist (Martin Short).

They’re all connected somehow, but keep your focus on Doc. Within just one of Anderson’s gorgeously composed long takes, Phoenix can shift almost imperceptibly from shaggy passivity to hilarious ineptitude to heartbreaking pathos.

Anderson has made a movie that can accurately be called all his own. It’s one thing to be the first filmmaker confident — or crazy — enough to tackle the vibrant madness of Pynchon’s prose. It’s quite another to get it right.

eweitzman@nydailynews.com