Review: Joaquin Phoenix's Riveting, Revolting 'I'm Still Here'

Sept. 10, 2010 — -- Joaquin Phoenix could be the most narcissistic, sniveling, drugged-up mess of a man ever to appear on a screen. Or he could be the greatest actor of all time.

After watching "I'm Still Here," the just-released documentary that chronicles his 2008 departure from Hollywood and attempt to launch a rap career, the former seems more believable. But it's hard not to watch.

The film, directed by his brother-in-law, actor Casey Affleck, follows Phoenix through blow-up after blow-up, joint after joint, beer after beer. He screams, he smokes, he snorts. Over the course of a months-long quest for legitimacy that takes him all over the country and eventually to Panama, Phoenix insists that he's better than everyone else, that he deserves A-list treatment, that he's too cool for Hollywood, that he's got what it takes to make it as an emcee, and that no, this whole quitting-acting-taking-up-rapping thing is not a hoax.

Like a petulant child, he begs for attention. He gets it from salaried sycophants and assistants, and Affleck, who stays behind the cameras for almost all of the movie, is seemingly unperturbed by his friend's descent into madness.

Affleck's aloofness calls into question the nature of the film -- it's billed as a documentary but, at times, Phoenix seems to be playing to the camera instead of dissolving before it, displaying a level of idiocy that seems a stretch even for an Oscar-nominated actor (first for "Gladiator," then for "Walk the Line"). He never figures out how to address the rap mogul he stalks, Sean "Diddy" Combs. (Is it "Diddy?" Is it "Mr. Combs?" He can't be bothered to get it right.) Oh, he needs money to make an album? He didn't know that. He was too busy manically making snow angels.