I have an aversion to biopics of people who haven’t been dead at least 200 years, and especially to celebrity biopics, but I might make an exception for Joaquin Phoenix. Being raised vegan from the age of three is the least of it. His Wikipedia page is worth reading. A lot of pretty grim stuff, and it’s not all his doing: his parents at least left the cult early, as it was starting to veer off into the sexual crazylands, and that is apparently one of the reasons they left.
His parents had been missionaries in South America and Puerto Rico; both are of European ancestry (Russian and Hungarian Jewish on his mother’s side), but they gave Joaquin an Hispanic name since he was born in Puerto Rico. They changed their surname to Phoenix when they left the cult and wanted to symbolize a new beginning. Joaquin was thus born into unconventional circumstances and walked the edge of the crazylands for a long time before maturing into what appears to be a pretty sober and serious person. The darkness of so many of his roles probably comes naturally. And then there’s his older brother, who has a celebrated star on the Dead Celebrity Junkies’ Walk of Fame.
There could easily have been two Phoenix stars on the Walk of Fame. Joaquin almost incinerated himself after he flipped his car on one of the canyon roads around Hollywood. This was during his young crazy years in the film industry. He was trapped inside and decided to light a cigarette, that being the obvious way to pass the time while pinned upside down with gasoline leaking. A passer-by tapped on the window and asked if he was alright, then advised him to hold off on the cigarette. That person turned out to be Werner Herzog. Lessons learned. If I were going to compare him with someone, it would be Johnny Cash, who he played in Walk the Line (2005).
But I digress.
In my unending search for good news on the movie front, I will recommend Montana Story (2021) for the best un-PETA scenes in recent memory. Erin is a young woman, now 25, who had disappeared seven years before for reasons best left in no spoiler territory. (There is no sexual abuse involved, and no nudity or sex scenes.) She has now mysteriously reappeared, still estranged from both her father, who is in a terminal coma, and her brother, now 22, a recent college grad in civil engineering. The family home is a ranch, about to go into foreclosure.
One thing leads to another, and the ice will thaw to a point at which Erin is ready to tell Cal, her little brother, where she’s been for seven years. She had always loved to cook, so she saved her money, went to culinary school, and is now a cook at a little farm to table restaurant in upstate New York, where she had landed after running away. (An aunt had taken her in and helped her disappear.)
There is a short conversation that shreds so many yuppie liberal pieties — all through indirect hints and wonderfully understated facial expressions — that it is worth watching the movie just for that. Erin and Cal are stranded on the side of the road, waiting for a tow truck. She bums a cigarette off her brother: “It’s not good for the palate, but cooks all seem to smoke ... it confuses people.” Then she tells Cal about the restaurant, a place called Sinew: “It’s supposed to be ironic — tough and strong, not something anyone would actually want to eat .... Our thing is we use the whole animal, snout to tail — you ever heard of that? .... So we kill it, cook it, serve it, all of it ....” The expression on her face is priceless. It’s the first time in the movie that Erin comes out of her shell enough to smile, and the Montana ranch girl obviously finds the pretentions of New York foodies to be utterly ridiculous. But she loves to cook, and she likes the job.
[Some freepers will have seen The Menu, now streaming, which is an over-the-top comedy/horror takedown of elite foodie culture. Erin eviscerates the same targets in 70 seconds, and it’s hilarious because it’s played straight and with humor.]
Then they get home and Erin, now established as a professional cook, sets about rustling up dinner. The father is in a coma, there is almost no food in the house, but there are still chickens out in the coop and Erin knows how to use a knife.
I just rechecked the credits. The film does not have the usual “no animals were harmed” disclaimer. I do know that a local farmer who raised chickens was enlisted to teach the actress how to do it properly. The chickens that made the ultimate sacrifice were then dressed, cooked and eaten by the cast and crew.
This same Erin, by the way, also goes to heroic measures to save an old horse that her brother had been planning to put down, thus demonstrating that she knows the difference between pets and food.
The un-PETA movie of the year.
I thought he was born Leaf Phoenix and took the name Joaquin, but you are right. His parents named him Joaquin, but since his brothers and sisters had such strange names (River, Rain, Summer, Liberty) he called himself Leaf at one time to fit in with them. The father’s original last name was “Bottom.” I wonder if Joaquin’s late brother River Phoenix was ever “River Bottom.”