Critically acclaimed actor Joaquin Phoenix (Two Lovers, Walk the Line, Gladiator) announced his decision to retire from acting in 2008. What followed was a string of shambolic public appearances as an unkempt, overweight Phoenix attempted to change career and become a rap musician. What resulted was a spectacular fall from grace, which has been documented here by his brother-in-law Casey Affleck (brother of Ben Affleck and star of The Killer Inside Me).
The running question throughout I’m Still Here, is whether this documentary – and the past two years of Joaquin’s (or JP, as he rebranded himself) life have all been an elaborate hoax, a Borat-style persona created to poke the multi-faceted fame-machine that created him. After all, Joaquin Phoenix always appeared to be an intelligent character, his alter-ego JP appears to have dropped 100 IQ points and developed an unhealthy fixation on creating terrible rap songs, full of terribly obvious lyrics and cheesy samples.
Though whether a hoax or not, what appears to be real is that Joaquin Phoenix decided to immerse himself in his alter ego for over two years, which amounts to one of the most extreme examples of method acting ever shown on film. His reasoning for this, that he is tired of playing the character of Joaquin Phoenix is articulate and elicits sympathy . Whatever your previous thoughts of Joaquin Phoenix (if any), you firmly believe and get behind JP’s quest, no matter how misguided it appears to be, and that also, more incredibly, that the Joaquin Phoenix we previously knew isn’t coming back anytime soon.
I’m Still Here is a curious oddity - bloated, overlong, cold but endlessly fascinating. It’s not the easiest watch, due in part to JP being so difficult to warm to, when not ingesting narcotics or emotionally bruising his worn-down assistant, the character of JP appears to be mostly that of a depressive, over-sensitive, incoherent wreck. Also, would anyone, no matter the IQ endlessly subject themselves to constant public derision by mumbling ear-bleedingly terrible rap songs on stage? If this was all a joke, then perhaps there’s a better way to tell it, as after 108 minutes, the joke starts to wear pretty thin.
5/10
Jonny Dawson
