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‘John Candy: I Like Me’ Review: Colin Hanks’ Doc Portrait Pays Poignant Tribute to a Comic Icon’s Life and Legacy
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John Candy is having a bit of a moment. While it has been more than three decades since the beloved Canadian comic actor died tragically too soon, at the age of 43, of a heart attack, his legacy continues to burn brightly. Last year marked the 40th anniversary of Splash, the film that really jump-started Candy’s big screen career; next month sees the release of the biography, John Candy: A Life in Comedy, penned by Paul Myers (brother of Mike); and this week the Toronto International Film Festival kicked off its 50th anniversary edition with the premiere of John Candy: I Like Me, a big-hearted documentary that’s as embracing and generous of spirit as the man himself. It launches on Amazon Prime Video starting October 10.
Directed by Colin Hanks, and featuring testimonials and reminiscences from those who knew him best — family, friends and colleagues including Dan Aykroyd, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Steve Martin, Andrea Martin, Bill Murray and Hanks’ dad Tom, who played his brother in the aforementioned Splash — the assessment of Candy’s life and legacy provides ample cause for laughter while also provoking plenty of tears. Residing just beneath that easygoing, eager-to-please, everyman exterior was a chronic anxiety that reached a crippling peak during his final years.
John Candy: I Like Me
The Bottom Line
The affection is infectious.
Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Gala Presentations)
Airdate: Friday, October 10 (Prime Video)
Director: Colin Hanks
1 hour 53 minutesAs Hanks charts Candy’s career trajectory from the Second City stages in Chicago and Toronto to cult sketch series SCTV to serving as John Hughes’ muse in eight collaborations — including Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, from which the documentary derives its title, and Uncle Buck — he never loses sight of that nagging undercurrent of insecurity that would haunt the actor despite those successes. As O’Brien puts it, “This industry is very unhealthy for people-pleasers.”
Toronto-raised John Franklin Candy was a shy, introverted big kid who was all of 5 years old when his own father died at age 35, also from heart disease. He’d gain confidence performing improv and sketch comedy, but it was his character work on SCTV, including his inspired takes on Pavarotti, Julia Child and Orson Welles, that made industry folk sit up and take notice.
Spielberg would come calling with a part in 1941. Mel Brooks, on the high praise friend Carl Reiner had for Candy after directing him in Summer Rental, proceeded to cast him as the half-man, half-dog Barf in Spaceballs. “He stuck acting in his back pocket and behaved like a human being,” says Brooks of Candy’s professional ethic.
Despite all that good stuff coming his way, there was still that stubborn undercurrent of melancholy. In response to news of John Belushi (who had tried to persuade his old Second City buddy to join him on Saturday Night Live) dying of a drug overdose in 1982, SCTV colleague Dave Thomas tearfully recalls a despondent Candy saying, “Oh God, it’s starting.” As Thomas elaborates, he carried the weight of his father’s passing every day.
Ironically, eating and drinking would become Candy’s coping mechanism, even as he was aware of his family history. And while his wife Rose shares he would often work out with a trainer and go on extreme diets, she adds that “the industry wanted him big” and his representation wasn’t exactly thrilled when he once shed close to 100 pounds.
By the early ’90s, when he was no longer picking the hits — as one interviewer not-so-gingerly puts it, “You’ve been in more turkeys than a stuffing mix” — Candy embarked on a second career as co-owner of the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts, along with Wayne Gretzky and Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall.
By then increasingly plagued by panic attacks, he’d die in his sleep on March 4, 1994, while on location in Durango, Mexico, filming the ill-fated comedy Wagons East.
Hanks — who previously directed a pair of music-themed documentaries, including All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records — knows to give the assembled wealth of comedic talent, along with Candy’s widow and two adult children, all the space they need to share the many lively and affecting anecdotes. He accompanies those with a generous sampling of memorable movie and TV clips, archival interview and home movie footage, not to mention a stirring Cynthia Erivo cover of “Every Time You Go Away” by Daryl Hall & John Oates.
What’s not to like?
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Michael Rechtshaffen
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A John Candy Documentary Is Coming to Amazon
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Ryan Reynolds and Colin Hanks have plans to shine some light on one of comedy’s greatest stars. John Candy is probably one of the most recognizable comedians of all time. Unfortunately, not all that much is known about his private life. He’s definitely included among the ranks of 20th century comedy legends who were gone too soon, like Chris Farley or John Belushi.
John Candy began his career with a number of friends who were active at Second City Toronto, which eventually created their own television program, called SCTV. Among the cast for the show were other comedy legends who had yet to enter the prime of their careers. The original cast included the likes of John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O’Hara, Harold Ramis, and Dave Thomas. Martin Short and Rick Moranis would join later on. This show was almost a kind of prototype for SNL, and many cast members would eventually make the switch.
Unfortunately, after a huge career and tons of memorable roles, Candy passed away of a heart attack at the age of 43. He was part of some of the best classic comedies, from Spaceballs to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. During this run, he also met Tom Hanks when he co-starred as Hanks’ brother in Splash. This must have made quite the impression on a young Colin Hanks.
Colin Hanks got the support of Candy’s widow to use never-before-seen home videos to create a documentary about his life. Hanks has quietly been working on the project for a long time, but he’s just recently managed to sell the distribution rights to Amazon. Ryan Reynolds is joining the project as producer, something he’s been doing more and more of lately. Of course, it only makes sense that one of the most prevalent comedians of our time would want to pay tribute to one of the greats.
10 Actors Who Got Different Roles Than They Auditioned For
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Cody Mcintosh
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Tom Hanks on Hollywood Nepotism: “Doesn’t Matter What Our Last Names Are”
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Tom Hanks is often referred to as “America’s dad,” but when it comes to his actual children, the Oscar winner is defending them in the ongoing nepotism-baby discourse stoked by a recent New York magazine cover.
In his newly released film, A Man Called Otto, Hanks stars with his youngest son, Truman, who plays a younger version of his father’s character. Rita Wilson, Hanks’s wife and Truman’s mother, both produced the film and performed an original song for it. Hanks told Reuters (via The Sun) in a recent interview that all four of his children are “very creative” and “involved in some brand of storytelling.”
The actor has two children with his late first wife, Samantha Lewes—Colin, who has starred in series including Fargo and A Friend of the Family, and Elizabeth. He and Wilson are also parents to Chet, an occasional actor and aspiring rapper who controversially promoted “White Boy Summer” in 2021 and previously said he “didn’t have a strong male role model” to advise him on growing up Hanks.
“Look, this is the family business. This is what we’ve been doing forever. It’s what all of our kids grew up in,” Hanks told Reuters of his showbiz family. “If we were a plumbing supply business or if we ran the florist shop down the street, the whole family would be putting in time at some point, even if it was just, you know, inventory at the end of the year.”
He continued: “The thing that doesn’t change, no matter what happens, no matter what your last name is, is whether it works or not. I mean, that’s the issue anytime any of us go off and try to tell a fresh story or create something that has a beginning and a middle and an end. Doesn’t matter what our last names are. We have to do the work in order to make that a true and authentic experience for the audience.” Hanks definitively added, “That’s a much bigger task than worrying about whether anybody’s going to, like, try to scathe us or not.”
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Savannah Walsh
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