VENICE (Hollywood Reporter) - Give up acting? Casey Affleck's energetic directorial debut, "I'm Still Here," basically scotches the idea that Joaquin Phoenix has retired as an actor to become a hip-hop artist, revealing it all to be an elaborate media hoax, albeit one that has seriously altered the actor's real-life image over the last year and a half.
This sporadically engrossing mockumentary, which gets better as it rolls along, must have been planned way back before Phoenix bombed on "Late Show with David Letterman." Or is part of it for real?
At the film's Venice press conference on Monday, which Phoenix failed to attend, Affleck continued to suggest that he had shot a straight documentary, against much evidence in the film itself.
The fact that an audience can watch the film to the end and not be completely sure where reality ends and playtime begins is a tribute to Affleck's skills at mimicking documentary tropes: the handheld camera, badly framed images, the mishmash of news reports and YouTube clips. It is also a backhand compliment to Phoenix's thespian abilities and courage. But it may leave viewers with too much head-scratching uncertainty when it opens in English-speaking territories next week. Audiences who drink their documentaries straight beware: this is one potent mixed cocktail.
Daring to look nasty, vindictive, self-centered and ridiculous, Phoenix surrenders all privacy to his brother-in-law Affleck's invasive cameras. They follow him into hotel rooms and into bed, voyeuristically watching while he uses recreational drugs, entertains two New York hookers and falls apart at the seams.
Deciding to turn rapper out of the blue, Phoenix begins pursuing Sean "Diddy" Combs cross-country in the hope of doing a record together. But when he finally gets into Combs' recording studio with a homemade CD of his songs, the rapper quickly realizes what the audience already knows: that Phoenix's artistic talents lie elsewhere. "Why do you want to do hip-hop?" Combs asks in wonderment.
Shattered by Combs' reaction, Phoenix goes on "Letterman" in a catatonic state. Belittled and mocked by his host, he inspires tenderness for the first time; but the show sends his popularity plummeting.
Like a wounded animal, he takes out his frustrations on his assistant Anton (played by actor Antony Langdon) and his manager Larry. Then he remembers the wisdom lecture imparted by his friend Edward James Olmos, who compares his career to a drop of water that runs from the top of the mountain to the valley, disappears into the ocean, then evaporates and returns to the top once again. Joaquin takes it as the truth about his life.
Though the first half of the film keeps the viewer guessing about what's actually going on, it is paradoxically when the tricks and mirrors are forgotten that the film becomes funny and enjoyable as an engrossing character study. It finally becomes possible to gaze beyond Phoenix's four-letter words and manic ranting and at the man himself.
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This sporadically engrossing mockumentary, which gets better as it rolls along, must have been planned way back before Phoenix bombed on "Late Show with David Letterman." Or is part of it for real?
At the film's Venice press conference on Monday, which Phoenix failed to attend, Affleck continued to suggest that he had shot a straight documentary, against much evidence in the film itself.
The fact that an audience can watch the film to the end and not be completely sure where reality ends and playtime begins is a tribute to Affleck's skills at mimicking documentary tropes: the handheld camera, badly framed images, the mishmash of news reports and YouTube clips. It is also a backhand compliment to Phoenix's thespian abilities and courage. But it may leave viewers with too much head-scratching uncertainty when it opens in English-speaking territories next week. Audiences who drink their documentaries straight beware: this is one potent mixed cocktail.
Daring to look nasty, vindictive, self-centered and ridiculous, Phoenix surrenders all privacy to his brother-in-law Affleck's invasive cameras. They follow him into hotel rooms and into bed, voyeuristically watching while he uses recreational drugs, entertains two New York hookers and falls apart at the seams.
Deciding to turn rapper out of the blue, Phoenix begins pursuing Sean "Diddy" Combs cross-country in the hope of doing a record together. But when he finally gets into Combs' recording studio with a homemade CD of his songs, the rapper quickly realizes what the audience already knows: that Phoenix's artistic talents lie elsewhere. "Why do you want to do hip-hop?" Combs asks in wonderment.
Shattered by Combs' reaction, Phoenix goes on "Letterman" in a catatonic state. Belittled and mocked by his host, he inspires tenderness for the first time; but the show sends his popularity plummeting.
Like a wounded animal, he takes out his frustrations on his assistant Anton (played by actor Antony Langdon) and his manager Larry. Then he remembers the wisdom lecture imparted by his friend Edward James Olmos, who compares his career to a drop of water that runs from the top of the mountain to the valley, disappears into the ocean, then evaporates and returns to the top once again. Joaquin takes it as the truth about his life.
Though the first half of the film keeps the viewer guessing about what's actually going on, it is paradoxically when the tricks and mirrors are forgotten that the film becomes funny and enjoyable as an engrossing character study. It finally becomes possible to gaze beyond Phoenix's four-letter words and manic ranting and at the man himself.
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