This has to be the weirdest film I've ever seen in the cinema. This strange fly-on-the wall documentary about Joaquin Phoenix's retirement from acting and his subsequent meltdown as he pursued a career in hip hop. While we all know now that it was all faked, anybody who claims they knew all along is, quite frankly, a humongous fecking liar. 'Oh, it was obviously faked' people crowed as the film came out 'I knew all along!'
Well done, well done. Go and buy yourself a prize, then sod off. Whether or not you knew, it's still a strange experience because we all remember it. The media blitz of Joaquin Phoenix's totally barking behaviour is something everyone remembers and, at the time, believed. So it is a strange feeling seeing this all recapped in 'I'm Still Here'. It's strange because you honestly have no idea who is in on the joke. Seeing Ben Stiller totally perplexed by Joaquin Phoenix as he brings him a script to read is hilarious and almost painful at the same time, probably because we also remember Stiller parodying Phoenix's Letterman interview at the Oscars in 2009. Did Stiller know? Was his annoyance in the scene genuine? Letterman has said he didn't know. Or did he? If the intention was to totally fuck with our heads, well, then director Casey Affleck succeeded.
You'll be seeing a lot of this kind of shot in this film.
The whole thing is of course a really painful road movie, where Joaquin Phoenix, playing himself amplified ten times over, gives a performance that somehow manages to be more insane than his Emperor Commodus from Gladiator. And he doesn't throw anybody to the lions in this one. You simply cannot take your eyes off the guy; insane, ranting and egotistical, Joaquin Phoenix delivers possibly one of his finest performances. Basically, his meltdown is the story. It's a Spinal Tap-esque journey where Phoenix fucks up everything he tries and manages to insult everybody he works with, including his personal assistant who makes a memorable stab at revenge later on in the film. The film is surprisingly dedicated to making itself seem real, even dealing with a subplot about somebody on his staff letting slip the film is a hoax and charting Phoenix's fury as he blames everybody around him for what is happening. Of course, the comedy primarily revolves around the reactions of everybody Phoenix meets to the man in question. Particularly notable are his meetings with a completely confused Sean Puffy P-Diddwiddyshowaddywaddy-Pimp P. Mack-diddywop (or whatever the hell it is he calls himself these days) who tries to give the best possible criticism on Phoenix's genuinely terrible rapping.
For my next trick, I shall turn out to be an alien.
The whole film cannot be talked about in detail, mainly because the sum is more important than the parts. The purpose was of course to satirize celebrity, and this it does with considerable aplomb. The relationship of a celebrity with the media, the media's reactions to strange behaviour, how fans will react to celebrities, all of these themes are dealt with in this film. It's also funny as hell, and how on earth Joaquin Phoenix managed to keep a straight face as he befuddled everybody in Hollywood is a miracle in itself. What's even more of a miracle is that he even has a career to look forward to after this particular stunt, since Hollywood as a rule does not like to be sent up in such a savage fashion. Alas, the film is not perfect. It is far too long, taking the joke perhaps fifteen to twenty minutes further than it really needed to, and sometimes it simply lacks punch, just fading off into more fly-on-the-wall ego trips that start to feel more like padding than essential material. It's a pretty good mockumentary, but it's hardly Spinal Tap. One wishes that they could have made something bigger out of the comedic situations, but at the same time, anymore footage of Phoenix meandering around muttering would probably have been too much. What you get as a whole is a strange and almost brilliant film, which just about manages to be a crazed work of genius and yet stops just short of being classic.
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