Joaquin Phoenix: I'm Still Here

3.5 stars out of 5

Well, now that director/writer Casey Affleck has let the cat out of the bag, we can view this bizzaro film with a clear conscience; it is, in fact, all an extremely elaborate, time-consuming and expensive (both in dollar terms and it terms of damage to JP's career) hoax. The film features cringe humor, the kind I like the least, where you are so embarrassed for the people on the screen you don't want to look (that's why I don't love Lucy). Frankly, there's a little too much male frontal nudity for my taste as well. But as a portrait of an artist who is willing to live a lie, in public, and gain 30 pounds to boot, this movie cannot be beat.

Thirty years from now, people are going to look at the Letterman interview and the Ben Stiller parody of JP at the Oscars, and assume the footage is faked, ala Spinal Tap. But it was real. And while Spinal Tap marked the birth of the modern mockumentary (of which Christopher Guest is the king), Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix can now claim to be heirs to the throne, having produced the most publicized, straight-faced load of malarkey in movie history.