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| Phoenix in The Master |
A couple of years ago, Joaquin Phoenix starred in and co-wrote
I'm Still Here, a sort-of documentary about his fake attempt to give up acting to become a rapper, all the while seeming to slide into self-destruction. I wish I could say that his latest film,
The Master, is also a hoax of some kind, but I'm afraid it isn't. Pretentious, pointless and thoroughly enervating, it's directed and written by Paul Thomas Anderson, a filmmaker of great talent and genuine accomplishments like
Magnolia and
Punch-Drunk Love. But
The Master is purest folly; the raves it's received in some circles tell us more about the sorry, insecure state of contemporary film criticism than they do about the movie itself. Phoenix's performance as a cult hanger-on is the best thing about
The Master, and that, believe me, is not saying much.
