(2010) If you watch this, which I wouldn't recommend, you will find Stephen Dorff's character Johnny Marco in Somewhere more appealing. Joaquin Phoenix's brother-in-law Casey Affleck's documentary of a celebrity's career switch, alternately shocking and boring, opens with a home movie from 1981 of Joaquin as a child jumping from a height (after a lengthy hesitation) into a pool of water with a waterfall in the background and his father in the near foreground to which scene the film will return at the conclusion when J.P. goes to visit his father in Panama.

Having decided to evade the fraudulent - because "You're just … a puppet" as an actor - a bearded Joaquin says to the camera: "I wanna be whatever I am." In October 2008 in San Francisco the two-time Academy Award nominee, after completing Two Lovers, wanting to leave behind a creative legacy, announces his retirement from cinema ("He's done") to become a white rapper of his own hip-hop compositions.

In December in Miami he begins an effort to coax Sean "P. Diddy" Combs into producing an album, who after listening to a CD demo of songs says he hears potential but nothing that's ready to record. Two friends, Antony Langdon (appearing twice in frontal nudity) and Larry McHale, accompany the foul-mouthed J.P., who becomes increasingly a bloated slob as he focuses more on his music career and less on personal hygiene.

A parody has Batman remarking on Joaquin's supposedly giving up movies: "You've given up shaving." On different occasions rumors surface that his quitting's actually just a hoax. Angry and anxious, he accuses Antony of betraying him to the press.

He's shown with prostitutes, snorting a line of coke, and getting a dump in his mouth while asleep. With Ben Stiller at Phoenix's home in LA he discusses the script of Greenberg and the role of Ivan; wearing a fake beard at an awards assembly Stiller, standing beside Natalie Portman, mimics quitting comedy for cinema.

In Las Vegas Phoenix's career-switch act gets panned as "amateur pratfall"; at the LIV Club in Miami he jumps into the audience to attack a heckler. Edward James Olmos offers encouragement: "Be a drop of running water," evaporate and return to the summit.

In New York on David Letterman's show, wearing dark glasses with his longish hair and thick beard unkempt, Joaquin chews gum during an awkward interview of mostly silence, inspiring Dave to ask: "What can you tell us about your days with the Unibomber?" As he exits (he will try to go out a "Not an exit" door), Letterman quips: "Joaquin, I'm sorry you couldn't be here tonight."

Afraid that he's ruined his reputation - "I'm gonna be a joke forever" - Joaquin returns to the water in Panama. The script of this faked reality was produced and written by Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix (formerly known as Leaf). The spoof sometimes suggests Sacha Baron Cohen's antics; the title puts me in mind of I'm Not There, Todd Hayne's filmography (approved by Bob Dylan) with six actors portraying six fictional personas of John Wesley Harding, which I would recommend.

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