In autumn 2008 the entertainment channels were abuzz with the strange story of Joaquin Phoenix’s retirement from acting. In the tradition of all good movie plots there was a twist – this Hollywood star had set his heart on a new life as a musician and nothing was going to stand in his way. There followed twelve surreal months of speculation, confusion and reinvention as Joaquin’s distinctive curled lip disappeared beneath a Unabomber beard and an alternate persona rose from the ashes of his career: Joaquin ‘JP’ Phoenix – hip hop artist! I’m Still Here tells the behind-the-scenes story of that year.
Joaquin Phoenix was born in Puerto Rico in 1974. His parents were members of the Children of God cult and Joaquin himself was raised in the religious community until the age of six when the family became disillusioned with community life and broke away. The name Phoenix was adopted to symbolise their new start. I’m Still Here purports to capture Joaquin’s breakaway from the cult of celebrity as he allows brother-in-law Casey Affleck to document his fumbling attempts to begin his life anew. Rumours stalked the production from the outset and grew in strength as the born again rapper was spotted around town with camera crew in tow. Fuelled by quotes from within Phoenix’s own camp that the project was a spoof, to the world’s waiting press it seemed unthinkable that such a talent would choose to simply walk away.
I’m Still Here opens with a young Joaquin poised at the edge of a waterfall, waiting an interminable moment to leap. The vulnerability of that boy in that moment echoes throughout the film as Affleck’s lens stalks every uncomfortable moment of his stumble and fall. His companions on the journey are friend and ‘caretaker’ Larry and general assistant/fall guy Anton – Spacehog’s Antony Langdon. Joaquin’s final booking is a role in a play put on in tribute to Paul Newman. He arrives there simultaneously humble and comically bitter – one moment locked in a clinging and emotional embrace as he greets Sean Penn like a brother – the next bickering with Casey over who has won the better part in the all-star show: “You’re with everybody, I’m with f**king Danny DeVito!”
Much of the film depicts this duality. At times Phoenix seems a troubled soul, struggling to find an identity, pleading with the camera for answers or reprieve. Then in the blink of an eye he is a belligerent fool snorting a bump of coke from the arm of his Johnny Cash shades. Slumped in those shades and a crumpled suit in the back of an immaculate car as he speeds from his Letterman humiliation, you can almost believe in the fiction. There is something behind the facade of I’m Still Here, something beyond the clowning and mugging for attention. Joaquin Phoenix is a troubled man. Perhaps he is not the man portrayed here, crawling after a bemused Diddy begging scraps from the Bad Boy table. Nor the caner smoking blunts to the point of incoherency and bowing down to the wisdom of Edward James Olmos. But he is in there among them.
I’m Still Here does pass judgement on its content for those prepared to listen. Joaquin himself breaks the news of his career change – tossing ‘exclusives’ like compliments into the open mouths of the gossip-hungry reporters. The roles for women in the film are carefully limited to observers and entertainers: a larger-than-life poster of Summer Phoenix overlooks the Jack Ass pranks as her brother and his hangers-on streak across her apartment, bash out tunes on the piano and mug for the camera. A Lichtenstein girl coolly appraises the scene as Joaquin chops out another white line. And a takeaway prostitute watches, with absolute disinterest, the falling star suckle her sagging breast with all the enthusiasm one might muster for a discount pizza – the very act of ordering her having satiated his appetite for shock.
But here too the film falls down. The attempts to shock are puerile and dull and some serve no greater purpose than headline-seeking filler. The revenge Anton enacts upon a sleeping Joaquin is so heavily alluded to in advance that most of its comedy value is lost. Even the premise – that Phoenix seeks an escape from the prison of his public life – undermines the suggestion that Affleck somehow happened to capture him falling apart. Would any friend be so callous? Would any filmmaker get so lucky? Phoenix has only to look to Sean Penn to see that a life beyond the Hollywood Hills is possible. In fact there is something of The Hills about I’m Still Here, a familiar dumbed down refrain, which renders Joaquin Phoenix’s character no more convincing than a big screen Justin Bobby. Any comment on America’s hunger for genie-instant gratification is lost in a tangle of conflicting messages.
Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix had an interesting idea but something appears to have been lost in translation. With the distractions of sex, drugs ‘n’ hip hop, I’m Still Here is an interesting, if indulgent, exercise in filmmaking that fails to ever really engage. The true story of a year in the life of this notoriously complex and private man would be compelling viewing indeed. Perhaps one day someone will tell it?
I’m Still Here opens in the UK on September 17th
