Joaquin Phoenix implodes to prove a point in I'm Still Here

A A A Comments (0) By Karina Longworth Wednesday, Sep 15 2010

...continued from page 1

Magnolia Pictures

I'm Still Here proves to be as real as Joaquin Phoenix's beard.

Details

I'm Still Here
Directed by Casey Affleck.
Featuring Joaquin Phoenix.
Opens Friday, September 17, at the Tivoli.

More About

In other words, the question of whether or not they're fucking with us is easily settled; it's much harder to determine why they're fucking with us. And are they even fucking with us — the average viewer with no direct experience of what it feels like to be a celebrity, who can only make inferences and judgments based on the images that are presented to us — or are they fucking with their fellow celebrities, who stand to feel the force of the less-than-flattering aspects of themselves in Phoenix's portrayal? Though clearly mocking the delusions of grandeur embodied in one of Phoenix's rap verses — "I'm still real/I won't kneel/I'm the one God's chosen, bitch" — most of the film isn't that broadly funny or apparently playful. At once deeply felt and devastatingly cynical, I'm Still Here's bone-dry satire couldn't exist without the celebrity media feedback loop. But its apparent attack on the Hollywood machine is so insidery, so vicious, that to us — the everyday consumer — it's just not clear why this stunt needed to exist at all.