Joaquin Phoenix film is not hoax, Affleck claims

An "unflinching" documentary following the troubled movie star Joaquin Phoenix is not a hoax but a "sympathetic portrayal" of a classic celebrity meltdown, the actor-turned-director Casey Affleck told the Venice film festival yesterday.

Yet at the end of the film's screening many were still left wondering whether some of the documentary's more extreme scenes had been faked, particularly after Affleck side-stepped the question at a news conference.

I'm Still Here tracks Phoenix's 18-month-long breakdown as he quits acting, attempts to build a hip-hop career as the mumbling rapper Jo-Pho and makes a car-crash appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman.

But it was the film's more outrageous scenes, including those that show an overweight and unkempt Phoenix (above) snorting coke off a groupie's breasts and being defecated on by an angry personal assistant,which fuelled speculation over whether the no-holds-barred documentary was simply a set-up.

At a press conference yesterday Affleck said Phoenix, his brother-in-law and long-time friend, "never shied away from letting me see all the different aspects of his personality. I owed it to him and to myself to do it as well as I could and to make it as unflinching a look at him as I possibly could. Ultimately, the film is a sympathetic portrayal of him."

He also insisted that the idea that his directorial debut was a hoax "had never entered my consciousness until other people started talking about the movie". Tellingly, however, Affleck would not comment outright on whether he had staged at least some of the scenes.

Ultimately this did not concern the critics. "Who cares, finally, whether this is a documentary or not?" asked the Guardian's Xan Brooks in a three-star review. "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."

In another three-star review, the Independent's Geoffrey McNab said: "I'm Still Here is cleverly crafted and edited and often very funny indeed. If it is a hoax, Phoenix is giving one of the greatest method performances of all time."

As for Phoenix himself, the actor was a no-show at the I'm Still Here press conference, although he has been spotted in Venice clean-shaven and svelte - in other words, looking every inch the movie star. ·