Casey Affleck’s I’m Still Here is, in and of itself, the perfect metaphor for the cult of celebrity – alternately compelling, repugnant, fuelled by pretension and ego and fake as a $3 bill. If anything at all profound can be taken from the shooting of actor Joaquin Phoenix playing a character called Joaquin Phoenix, it’s how truly gullible the global media still is to manipulation and marketing guile; that major news outlets have dedicated 1000’s of words to 'is-it-real?’ musings is quite extraordinary.
Just prior to the posting of this review, Affleck finally admitted to the American media the grand illusion he and Phoenix had been perpetuating all along, no doubt to appease the growing number of critics who rightly recognised the film as being far too calculated to be truly verité. It can now be seen as what it is – an ambitious but deeply-flawed addition to the mockumentary genre, well below the quality of standard-bearers such as Rob Reiner’s This is Spinal Tap (1984), Larry Charles’ Borat (2006) or the films of Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman, 1996; Best in Show, 2000; A Mighty Wind, 2003; For Your Consideration, 2006). For all its base humour, foul language and grotesque manifestations symbolising the corrosive effect of fame, I’m Still Here is most similar and far inferior to The Rutles, Eric Idle’s 1978 parody of The Beatles.
As has been well-documented, the film’s ultimately flimsy structure is based on the supposition that Oscar-nominated actor Joaquin Phoenix is sick of the shallowness of his profession and decides to relaunch himself as a rapper. The premise allows for Phoenix and Affleck to bitch and moan about how awful it is to be famous and talented; how the nature of the business means their true artistry and personal voice is never fully heard (yells Phoenix, from the backyard of his mansion overlooking Los Angeles, before he climbs into a limo and jets to his New York apartment). As a rapper, he can say what he wants when he wants and his career and success can stand or fall on his talent alone.
Affleck’s cameras are everywhere though really only serve to capture the incessant rantings of an 'artist’ so consumed with his own ambition he fails to comprehend his lack of talent. Mirroring the actor’s disgust for his audience (a decision that cost Woody Allen box office clout following his own skewering of fan devotion, Stardust Memories, in 1980), Phoenix turns on his sycophantic PA Anton (played by actor Antony Langdon) and extended entourage. Amped up for most of the film on cocaine and dope and growing fatter and scruffier with every scene, he burns and crashes as a rap artist. The denouement, which features a contrite Phoenix returning to the symbolic well-of-inspiration that nurtured his talent from boyhood, is laughably pretentious.
Obviously-staged improvised scenes with the likes of Ben Stiller, Edward James Olmos, Mos Def, and Sean 'Diddy’ Combs only suggest that far more people have been in on the joke than has been let on. Fleeting backstage encounters with the likes of Sean Penn and Jack Nicholson suggest they were in the dark, so awkwardly do they respond to Phoenix’s antics.
That Phoenix adopted this all-encompassing 'character’ both on- and off-screen during the making of the film was entirely necessary if the conceit was going to work at all. The ruse would have been exposed had Phoenix acted like this idiot version of himself whilst shooting then happily promoted James Gray’s Two Lovers at the same time, as agents and managers try to convince him to do in I’m Still Here. The failure of that film, which died a horrible death at the US box office despite positive reviews, can be directly attributed to Phoenix’s media manipulation at the time of making I’m Still Here and it’s not inconceivable that out-of-pocket investors would have every right to seek compensation from Phoenix and Affleck.
There will be those that rally behind I’m Still Here, mostly to praise the unbridled insanity of Phoenix’s performance. His portrayal of an emotional implosion and its associated physicality conjures an onscreen creature that melds the unhinged personae of such wildmen as John Belushi, Joe Pesci and Dennis Hopper. And it is not unfathomable that the film’s attacking-from-within savaging of celebrity culture will inspire discussion as to its effectiveness and worthiness; in that regard it is an interesting film, though never an entirely enlightening one.
But it’s too coarse (scenes involving prostitutes, full-frontal male nudity and defecation are self-indulgent and juvenile) and its often crude technological hindrances make the mostly-yelled dialogue often inaudible.
Worst of all is the sniggering air of deceit that accompanies the film; the very assumption that the audience must buy into the facade Affleck and Phoenix create or be left behind seems arrogant. It takes balls to subvert the by-definition dishonesty of film, especially within the (faux) documentary format, so credit goes to them for taking such an all-in approach. But they are simply not good enough to fully pull it off.
The actor Joaquin Phoenix is most certainly still here, but only because he never went away.
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