First, one should give credit where credit is due. With "I'm Still Here," actor Joaquin Phoenix and director Casey Affleck (Phoenix's brother-in-law) have hit upon a possibly singular formula: They've made a movie vaguely brave, old-school exploitative and completely inane.
Either a documentary of Phoenix's slide into insipid self-destruction or a scripted "mockumentary" of same (probably the latter, but one is hard-pressed to care either way), "I'm Still Here" chronicles a year or so in Phoenix's life, such as it is.
At a play commemorating the life of Paul Newman in 2008, Phoenix announces his retirement from acting to focus on a rap career. For the next few months, he alternates between being bearded, bloated and nearly catatonic and bearded, bloated and manic. (You might recall the catatonic version from Phoenix's 2009 appearance on "The Late Show With David Letterman," looking for all the world like Vincent Gallo after a couple of months locked in a Krispy Kreme.)
Affleck follows Phoenix and his long-suffering assistants around as Phoenix tries to make headway with his rapping. There's Antony, an English fellow whose penis we end up seeing an awful lot and who ends his relationship with Phoenix in the most scatological way possible. There's his publicist, looking crestfallen after the Letterman gig.
Then there's the evening with hookers, and the days of endless smoking, terrible rapping and a little drug snorting.
Phoenix, his hair matted (or is that carefully matted?) and busted sunglasses permanently affixed to his face, slides further down the rabbit hole, hitting something like rock bottom as he vomits repeatedly following a disastrous rap performance.
In fairness, there are some funny moments.
Edward James Olmos delivers to our hero an almost incomprehensible parable about the inner light of acting being extinguished by the spotlights. (Phoenix nods solemnly.) A screaming Phoenix gets into an argument with Antony over a possible leak to the media and berates his assistant as merely the help - Phoenix has the acting bit, the rapping bit: "What do you have? You're a bit-less dude!"
Sean "P Diddy" Combs is especially hilarious, first meeting with Phoenix in a hotel room and letting him know just how much this rap venture will cost: "You need money for studio, engineer, me ... me." The look on Diddy's face when he finally hears Phoenix's unfortunate demos is priceless.
The problem is that it's impossible to care about any of this. I'm sure "I'm Still Here" is hysterical (or terrifying?) to Phoenix's friends and business associates, to people inside the bubble of Hollywood hugs and giving exclusives to "Extra!" reporters.
But if there's one thing that the entertainment industry tells us over and over, it's that fame is really hard, that no matter how much money you have made participating, the hurry-up-and-wait banality that must make up most movie stars' lives between "Action" and "Cut" is a giant pain. There's nothing new in "I'm Still Here," just the massively indulgent home movies of a guy losing his mind in public and insisting we get involved. Or a parody of same.
Either way, don't let him waste your time.
'I'm Still Here'
Our grade: C
Genre: Documentary
Running Time: 108 min
MPAA rating: Unrated
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