John Candy: I Like Me is an anomaly in the context of celebrity documentaries. It contains few of the famous-person struggles that have become clichés of the genre — no scandal, no addiction, no bankruptcy, no notably objectionable behavior. The comedian was not without his struggles, but this is a nice movie. And it’s made by Hollywood Nice Son Colin Hanks, who met Candy when Candy co-starred with his father, Tom, in 1984’s Splash.
“He was an incredibly engaging personality,” Colin Hanks recalls. “It takes a special kind of person to leave that kind of imprint on a kid.”
I Like Me, released by Prime Video, came to Hanks through producer Ryan Reynolds, who long has had an affinity for Candy and already had secured participation from Candy’s children, who supplied the production with home movies, scripts and other hallmarks from their father’s vast archives.
The resulting film is a touching homage to an entertainer who somehow held on to his sense of self despite losing his father on his 5th birthday, battling anxiety at a time when mental health wasn’t commonly discussed in mainstream culture, and being grilled by journalists about his weight. The title comes from a well-known Planes, Trains and Automobiles monologue in which Candy’s character, chummy salesman Del Griffith, responds to put-downs from Steve Martin’s unsympathetic advertising exec, Neal Page, saying, “Think what you want about me. I’m not changing. I like me.”
