“That’s the problem when you talk about John,” says Bill Murray in the opening of John Candy: I Like Me, “people don’t really have a lot of negative things to say about him.” One of the worst pop cultural feelings is reading a biography, watching a behind-the-scenes special, or scrolling a Wikipedia entry and learning something terrible about someone or something you’ve idolized. So, not to worry: John Candy: I Like Me doesn’t contain anything even remotely troubling about the Canadian comedy legend. In fact, it doesn’t contain much at all aside from praise. Candy’s relatives, childhood pals, and famous comedy coworkers line up to glowingly reminisce about the actor, who died at just 43 years old in 1994. It’s a cinematic wake three decades late, as simple and universal and ultimately unsatisfying as a hug at a funeral.
To go back to that Murray line, he follows it by telegraphing an anecdote that might reflect something mildly negative about Candy. Then, as he’s about to tell it, John Candy: I Like Me cuts to its ethereal, near-holy opening credits. Director Colin Hanks, whose dad Tom was in Splash with Candy, begins his film in a Catholic church at Candy’s funeral, with the literal worship songs preceding the metaphorical ones.
This set-up is appropriate: Aside from a basic biography and the kinds of personal details so broad as to be perfectly impersonal (His family home was filled with food and laughter? He had to make the hard choice to pursue performing instead of working a typical nine-to-five?), the documentary has little interest in psychological insight or the mechanisms of Candy’s approach to his work. It’s only worried about his legacy as a kind man and a good dad.
Sure, it’s mentioned that Candy’s own father died young, and that his older brother had a heart attack in one of his dressing rooms, but this looming hereditary threat is skirted over just like the miniature histories of Second City, SCTV, and a stacked Toronto production of Godspell (which got its own documentary that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival just two days after I Like Me). The same goes for the film’s seesawing view of Candy’s weight; the doc alternatively blames his weight for his failing health and shames interviewers for drawing any attention to it. To be fair, it was almost always brought up in an insulting way, as was documented to even greater effect in the Luther Vandross doc Luther: Never Too Much, but this movie handles the topic off-handedly, brushing it away without much consideration to its effect on the psyche or the physique.
What you’re left with is a bunch of famous faces sitting in separate rooms giving brief talking-head interviews about an old friend who died 30 years ago—a step down from a group in a bar raising a glass to a lost pal. This has a certain bittersweetness, to be sure, but it’s also not much to hang a two-hour documentary on. Despite including plenty of home video footage and a clip show of Candy’s comedy career, from his early “Yellowbelly” sketch to Stripes to Uncle Buck and of course Planes, Trains and Automobiles, I Like Me sticks to the surface. Tyler Strickland’s shamelessly swelling score and Hanks’ simplistic structuring mean that surface also has a slick sheen, moving frictionlessly from birth to fame to death. As nice as it is to see that Tom Hanks thought he was great, or Mel Brooks, or Conan O’Brien, or Catherine O’Hara, that’s all it is: nice.
Every so often, a story or a side interest will come up that’ll threaten to tug a curious thread in Candy’s personality. He was an investor in and avid promoter of Canada’s pro football league, and the team he co-owned won the Grey Cup (the Canadian Super Bowl equivalent) the very first year he was involved with them. That’s a whole movie right there. But telling that story would entail a lot more legwork than Hanks thumbing through his Rolodex and asking for a few minutes of time to wax nostalgic about Candy.
Because John Candy: I Like Me positions itself as a feature-length eulogy, opening at the actor’s funeral and closing with his funeral procession, its merits as a documentary seem secondary to Hanks’ intentions. Anyone would be lucky to be remembered this way; most of us will merely get loving slideshows and a few choked-up speeches rather than 120 minutes of Amazon-hosted hagiography. But also like those loving slideshows and speeches, the memories they evoke are more valuable than the stories that evoke them. For those who remember Candy through his work, which is most people, his performances offer far more connection, and far more nuance, than this memorial.
Director: Colin Hanks
Release Date: October 10, 2025 (Amazon Prime Video)
