INHERENT VICE Casts Reese Witherspoon, Jena Malone, and Martin Short

Reese Witherspoon, Jena Malone, and Martin Short have been cast in Paul Thomas Anderson's next film project Inherent Vice. They will join Joaquin Phoenix, Owen Wilson,and Benicio Del Toro.  

The story is set in Los Angeles in 1970, and it follows a pot-smoking private detective named Doc Sportello (Phoenix) as he investigates the case of a kidnapped girl. Del Toro would play "an attorney who's always trying to help the protagonist out of trouble, though he's not an actual criminal lawyer." Witherspoon, who starred with Phoenix in Walk The Line, could end up playing the character of Shasta Fay Hepworth. Malone will play "a former drug addict who asks Sportello for help." Short's part isn't specified, but it's minor. 

The movie is an adaptation of the book written by Thomas Pynchon. Here's a description of the book:

Part noir, part psychedelic romp... private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog... It’s been awhile since Doc Sportello has seen his ex-girlfriend. Suddenly out of nowhere she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. Easy for her to say. It’s the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that “love” is another of those words going around at the moment, like “trip” or “groovy,” except that this one usually leads to trouble. Despite which he soon finds himself drawn into a bizarre tangle of motives and passions whose cast of characters includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a murderous loan shark, a tenor sax player working undercover, an ex-con with a swastika tattoo and a fondness for Ethel Merman, and a mysterious entity known as the Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists.