I'd say the first ten minutes or so are annoying and uninvolving, as the manipulations of the writer are too transparent - the dice are really loaded against Fleck from the beginning.
Then Phoenix's brilliance, and the care and stylishness of the production, really kick in.
I found the movie gripping and horrific and generally very well made. Great moments, entirely Phoenix's, one or two other good performances, and nice (if obvious) imagery.
In the end, though, after some reflection I have to agree with critics who have said that it's a hollow story. The movie is quite an impressive exercise in making a movie, but none of it means anything. Phoenix has to find an inner life for a character that the writer provides nothing for. Conceptually, Fleck is a meat robot.
Unraveling the thing, in shorthand: what is the precipitating incident that pushes Fleck over the edge?
The answer is, to paraphrase Fleck himself: "All I have are precipitating incidents." Which is saying, everything that happens to the character are endless repetitions of the same thing, which is that he never has had a good day or a happy moment or a true thing in his entire life, and there's no reason that he should respond to the awful thing that happens today any differently than he ever has before. He was brain-damaged as a child, he takes a cocktail of medications to keep himself together, he stops taking the medications, he goes off. That's what changes.
I dunno, there may be another way of analyzing this that gives the viewer a little something - Fleck's strange relationship and illusions about his mother, maybe - but that angle is pretty shopworn and is treated superficially here.
And...oddly enough, I really liked the movie and will catch it again when it's on TV.
Oh - the Waynes are just as awful as they would be, and I think Phillips and Phoenix have finally pushed me all the way over into my previously half-aware contempt for Teh Batman.
