TIFF 2010: Toronto International Film Festival

Actor Joaquin Phoenix (REUTERS/Fred Prouser) Phoenix imposter hits red carpet?

I don’t know if it’s considered a spoiler to say what doesn’t happen in a movie, but here goes.

At no time in I’m Still Here — Casey Affleck’s (literal) blow-by-blow documentary of the coke-fueled meltdown of his brother-in-law, Joaquin Phoenix — does he pull the curtain away and reveal the whole thing was a hoax.

That, of course, was the story after a monosyllabic, gum-chewing Phoenix showed up on Letterman, looking like Zach Galifianakis’ fatter brother, muttering his confirmation of retirement from acting in favour of a rap career.

C’mon, he had a camera crew following him! It had to be a punk, a Borat-like mockumentary in the making. No one would throw away an Oscar-nominated perch atop Hollywood’s A-list to become possibly the worst white rapper ever. What could Affleck have been thinking, filming his in-law at apparently the lowest depth of his life?

He didn’t really answer the question at a testy and short news conference when the film debuted at the Venice Film Festival earlier this week. And neither Affleck nor Phoenix is expected in town when I’m Still Here debuts today on Day 2 of the Toronto International Film Festival (although there is a Joaquin impersonator expected outside the Varsity theatre tonight).

After seeing the film, I’m inclined to agree with, among others, Roger Ebert, in concluding that this film is legit.

In some ways, I’m Still Here comes off like an extended version of the drunk David Hasselhoff burger video — a way of taking his loved one outside of himself, of shaming him and making him look at what he’s become, in all his puking, whoring, coke-snorting, sh--ing, inglory. (There is, for example, a scene with two topless hookers that is Exhibit A for the deleterious effects of cocaine on the libido).

Naturally, the infamous David Letterman interview is there. But the follow-up right after the show is definitely worth seeing — a sobbing fit of self-pity in Central Park, followed by a complete mood-swing turnaround where he screamingly blames everything on his hapless personal assistant, Antony.

If I’m Still Here is supposed to be some sort of celebrity version of Scared Straight, it clearly has the double intent of skewering celebrity culture.

And it has its moments in this regard. Turned down by both Rick Rubin and Dr. Dre in his attempts to become a rapper, Phoenix finds a willing ear in Sean (P. Diddy) Combs, who informs him that a career in music is like movies — it requires money.

“You need studio time. You need me,” he says.

“How much money?” Phoenix asks. “How much you got?” Diddy replies, echoing the centuries-old call of the con-man.

In time, however, even Diddy sees the hopelessness of Phoenix’s delusions of hip-hop dope-hood, and lets him know as much — either out of guilt or possibly even standards.

Ben Stiller comes out badly. His spoof of the Letterman/Phoenix on the Oscars is made to look like a mean-spirited payback for an earlier encounter, when Stiller tried to get him to go for the Rhys Ifans role in Greenberg and was mocked for his efforts. And Edward James Olmos gives Joaquin a somewhat fatuous pep talk about the inner light making its way through the cracks in our facade.

But mostly, I’m Still Here is somewhat tin-eared social commentary.

It is a fact that no one wants to hear a celebrity complain about how tough they have it. And in an infamous scene where Phoenix threw himself into a Miami crowd after a woman heckler, he yells, “I have a million dollars in the bank. What do you have?”

Why did Joaquin Phoenix melt down? That ultimately is the one thing missing from I’m Still Here. It opens and closes with idyllic Central American waterfall scenes, from his childhood and present, when he visits his father in Panama. The name “River Phoenix” is never mentioned. If you cut through the slurring in Joaquin’s raps, you can catch snippets about his tough years as a child actor. That’s still a long way from any kind of hip-hop street cred.

In the end, I’m Still Here is little more than a one-hour, 48-minute-long car wreck — albeit one that may still intrigue the conspiracy minded.

jim.slotek@sunmedia.ca