I'm Still Here

"An utterly fascinating experiment that apparently blends real and faked material to examine notions of celebrity, mental stability and friendship."

"My guess is that after years of being the trick pony, he wanted to see what it was like to be the ringmaster."

"Who cares, finally, whether this is a documentary or not? I'm Still Here paints a convincing portrait of a miserable, frustrated actor who has lived so long in the goldfish bowl that he can no longer conceive of a life beyond acting. Not knowing what to do, he falls back on the only thing he can do. He calls in a film crew to dramatise his torment: an anguished Hollywood brat play-acting the role of an anguished Hollywood brat for the benefit of a movie camera. This, surely, is what makes Affleck's film so funny, and so tragic too. "I'm just trapped in this fucking self-imposed prison of characterisation!" wails Phoenix at one stage, reclining at home while his dogs have sex on the lawn outside."

"Affleck's provocative, postmodern take on JP as half-joke, half-victim is the damnedest plunge into the dark heart of our "reality" culture since Sacha Baron Cohen invented Borat."

"A sad and painful documentary that serves little useful purpose other than to pound another nail into the coffin. Here is a gifted actor who apparently by his own decision has brought desolation upon his head."

"Fake or not, I'm Still Here is no fun to watch, and in fact Phoenix's situation comes off as so dire that it becomes a reason to doubt the film's authenticity. Filming someone having a mental breakdown is embarrassing and exploitative at best."

"This sporadically engrossing mockumentary, which gets better as it rolls along, must have been planned way back before Phoenix bombed on "Late Show With David Letterman.""