By John Corrado
A clear labour of love for director Colin Hanks and producer Ryan Reynolds, the celebrity bio-doc John Candy: I Like Me provides an engaging and moving tribute to the Canadian legend, both his work and his humanity. It was a fitting choice for the festival’s opening night on Thursday.
The film’s name, of course, comes from a line of dialogue from the John Hughes film Planes, Trains & Automobiles, a moment of heartbreaking empathy from Candy as a performer that came to define his acting career. It adds to the melancholic feel of the film; even in moments of levity, we are aware that Candy’s life will be cut short, the film’s timeline toggling between the start of his career and his untimely death in 1994.
The film opens on footage from his funeral at St. Basil’s Church in Toronto (Candy was Catholic), adding emotional weight to the interviews with family members and co-stars, who remember him as generous and kind-hearted. But also someone who was deeply impacted by his own father’s death from a sudden heart attack at five years old.
What emerges is a portrait of who Candy was as a person, as a father, and as a performer. Hanks and Reynolds focus on Candy’s empathy, but also his vulnerability, which is what really comes across. The darkest moments explore his place within a Hollywood system that made his weight a focus of his comedy, and fuelled his unhealthy food consumption and heavy drinking.
We hear from a litany of famous faces of people who worked with him. Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin from the SCTV days, film co-stars Steve Martin, Tom Hanks and Bill Murray (who laments not having anything bad to say about him), and now-grown Uncle Buck and Home Alone star Macaulay Culkin, reminiscing about working with him as a child actor. Candy’s widow and two adult kids talk about him as a family man, deeply protective of his children.
Colin Hanks, of course, has a personal connection to Candy through his father, while Reynolds is a lifelong Candy fan, despite never meeting his hero. For those who loved Candy as a comedian and a performer, which is myself and probably nearly everyone who will watch this film, I Like Me serves as an emotional and nicely crafted tribute. It will make you laugh and cry.
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