The new Amazon documentary John Candy: I Like Me takes its title from a famous scene that happens surprisingly early in the 1987 comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
In what is arguably Candy’s most beloved performance, he plays Del Griffith, a sweet-natured if initially irritating traveling salesman who winds up accompanying uptight Neal (Steve Martin) on a series of cross-country misadventures, attempting to get home for Thanksgiving.
After Neal unloads his frustrations, Del famously responds with utter insincerity: “Yeah, you’re right, I talk too much. I also listen too much. I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you … but I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings. Well, you think what you want about me; I’m not changing. I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me. ’Cause I’m the real article. What you see is what you get.” The stand he takes that moment in self-defense informs the character for the rest of the film.
For Colin Hanks, director of I Like Me, the trick was not necessarily showcasing that famous scene from that famous movie, though of course there are plenty of Planes, Trains and Automobiles clips in his documentary. Hanks was struck by how often Candy – who was sometimes understandably described as being better than the material given him – brought that same skill to other roles: “I was really taken aback by the nuance in some of the performances. There are snippets and moments where I see something akin to the ‘I like me’ moment, but in a lot of [other] films. They might not have the same weight or dramatic importance, but I can see something that’s unique or different.”
Hanks has lifelong experience finding those moments from Candy. There’s the not-insignificant fact that, as the son of Candy’s Splash co-star Tom Hanks, he knew the man. He also knew Candy’s son Chris and daughter Jennifer before their participation in I Like Me – all three Hollywood kids went to the same college, though not at the same time. But moreover, like so many people, Hanks grew up watching Candy’s films.
“When I was younger, I was absolutely obsessed with Who’s Harry Crumb?” he said with a laugh and an acknowledgment that the critically maligned flop might be a “controversial” choice for a favorite Candy movie. “There was something about that movie and his performance that was so deliciously idiotic and perfect, and made me laugh,” Hanks added, before going on to describe a highly specific Candy hand gesture that he knew he wanted captured in the film, which he re-bought and screen-captured to send to his editor so he could see precisely which moment to clip. “I was like, I cannot make the John Candy documentary and not put that in the movie.”
I Like Me isn’t just a greatest-hits reel, however. “You can make a documentary just based on his career and his talent, and it would be worthwhile, but I also don’t just want to make a Wikipedia entry,” Hanks said.
The movie includes home video footage of Candy with his family, rare TV interviews (revealing less for what the interviews get out of him than how visibly uncomfortable he is with some of their more invasive questions), and a focus on the psychology driving him, through both his family happiness and mounting health and self-image problems. Despite the latter, he’s not portrayed as a comedian constantly beset by torturous demons.
In fact, the flood of celebrity interviews – with Martin Short (“No one is going to say no to you,” Hanks recalled Short telling him), Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd, Conan O’Brien, Colin’s dad Tom, and the elusive Bill Murray – describe someone whose on-screen likability came from real-life gentility. Murray jokes in the film about wishing he had more dirt to dish than an anecdote about Candy mildly annoying director Sydney Pollack at a live event by milking a big laugh. Hanks also pointed out that of the three “quote-unquote ‘large actors’ who died in their prime, two of them died of drug overdoses and one of them didn’t, and I thought there was something interesting in that.”
But that doesn’t mean Candy’s life lacks a sadder dimension. Hanks hooked into the material of Candy’s life when he found out that the actor lost his own father at age five. “I just thought, from a human standpoint that is heart-wrenching. What was it like to live with that, both as a kid as an adult?” Hanks said. “And once I had spoken with Chris and Jen [I found out] he was getting to the stage in his life when he was starting to look at that stuff, in therapy, and was trying to solve those pieces of him that made him who he was.”
Chris and Jennifer Candy, who are co-executive producers on the film, welcomed the chance to work with the film-makers for a more definitive film about their father. Jennifer pointed out that these kind of celebrity-focused documentaries have changed a lot over the years, veering away from True Hollywood Story-style exploitation.
That’s certainly true of I Like Me, which sometimes verges on, if not sanitized, a little vague on some personal details, as it balances the off-camera history with an appreciation of his career. Some of the most joyful moments Hanks captures come from others speaking fondly about their favorite moments, like Conan O’Brien (who only met Candy once, as a young man) recalling with delight the particularly dark (and, he’s right, absolutely hilarious) SCTV sketch Yellowbelly. Culling SCTV material, Hanks said, was the hardest task of the movie’s clip management: “That sequence could have been 40 minutes.”
In that spirit, the Candy children enthusiastically offered their own recommendations for underrated Candy performances. Jennifer loves Once Upon a Crime, a less-seen comic mystery directed by Candy’s SCTV colleague Eugene Levy. Chris will go to bat for Nothing But Trouble, another comedian-directed movie, this one springing from the psyche of Dan Akyroyd. “I still think that the movie is pretty interesting,” Chris said. “It’s like postmodern Ghostbusters. It’s weird, but in the scope of my dad’s career and catalog, the fact that he was down to do that and clown around is pretty great.”
Years later, some of the weirder or less popular movies from Candy’s filmography now seem more worthwhile, both because of his overall scarcity and because of what he brings to the movies in question. It goes back to those moments of nuance that aren’t limited to his certified classics. “To be able to find those little moments in, hell, could be Nothing But Trouble, it’s inspiring for me as an actor,” said Hanks, referring to the job he’s best-known for. “It’s a good reminder that I can find those little moments, even if it doesn’t seem like that job or that scene is going to serve that purpose.”
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