John Candy: I Like Me, a documentary film about Candy’s life and career, was directed by Colin Hanks and produced by Ryan Reynolds. It premiered on September 4, 2025, as the opening film of the Toronto International Film Festival. The documentary screened at the 56th Nashville Film Festival on Saturday, September 20, 2025. It will premiere on Amazon Prime on October 10th.

CAST

The cast of talking heads includes Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, Dan Akroyd, Dave Thomas, Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Catherine O’Hara, Conan O’Brien, Rick Moranis, Macauley Culkin and others.  The footage of Candy at home and in movies is impressive. Much of the home movie footage is previously unseen. The editors (Shane Reid and Darrin Roberts) did an excellent job of selecting some of the best clips from Candy’s over 30 films.

CANDY IN 1955

John Candy was born October 31, 1950. On his fifth birthday in 1955 (October 31st), his father died from heart disease at only 35 years of age. The oft-repeated theme of the documentary is that, from that point on, his son John felt tremendous pressure to be “the man” of the family. He never really got over his father’s death at such a young age and the family’s refusal to really discuss  it did not help. In his own life, many felt that he created for himself the father he had always missed, providing a paternal, caring figure for others as diverse as Macauley Culkin, who worked with him in “Uncle Buck,” and other co-stars, who constantly comment on how he was always caring for others.

HEART DISEASE

John Candy in 1993. (Photo by Mike F. Campbell at Ivor Wynne Stadium, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada).

Heart disease seemed to be a prevailing family nemesis. John struggled with his weight throughout his life, always with the shadow of his dad’s early death in the back of his mind. Obesity, smoking, drinking, stress and anxiety: all are known dangers for those with heart disease. There is one interview with David Letterman excerpted in the film where the comedian tells Letterman that he has just returned from losing 70 pounds (from his 341-pound frame) at a Pritiken Diet camp. Despite the knowledge of his father’s early death and his own tendency to cope with his insecurities by eating his feelings and drinking his doubts, he periodically hired a nutritionist and had a trainer. (*I couldn’t help but wonder if the miracle weight loss drugs like Mounjaro and Ozempic might have given John Candy more than 43 years on the planet.)

When he died, on March 4, 1994, Candy was directing a movie in remote Durango, Mexico. He had also been experiencing some symptoms of heart disease, but chose to remain silent for fear of becoming uninsurable on movie sets. He had also just suffered a major betrayal by one of the three men, Bruce McNall, who bought into the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League with Candy and Wayne Gretzky.

ADJECTIVES THAT DESCRIBE JOHN CANDY

Every speaker on this documentary had nothing but praise for Candy as a performer and as a human being. Time and time again speakers mentioned Candy’s vulnerability, his sweetness, his smile, his caring, his concern, his expansive, joyous voraciousness. Bill Murray remembered how he and Candy were paired in improv early on in their careers because, “Nobody else wanted to work with us, because we didn’t know what we were doing.” Several of the celebrity friends said, “He was a kid. He was a child.” His wife, Rose, agreed and also attested to his sporadic attempts to get his weight under control, mentioning that she spoke with him about his increasing girth when she had to buy 5X shirts. But John did not want to hear what he knew he would hear, which would keep him from eating, drinking, smoking and other  unhealthy habits  which were his  coping mechanisms.

MEMORABLE STORY & SCENE

In showing the famous scene from “Splash” with Tom Hanks, Candy’s 1987 breakthrough movie, where he is playing racquetball and says his heart is “beating like a rabbit”—one of the truly funniest bits of all—Hanks recounted how, by sheer coincidence, the night before the two were to shoot that scene, which involved actually playing  racquetball, Jack Nicholson took Candy out on the town. The two did more drinking than advisable the night before a major scene was to be shot. Hanks recalled how Candy—a consummate actor—used his utter exhaustion (he had only had an hour and a half of sleep) to his benefit.

Another such scene that speaks to Candy’s command of his craft is the “Planes, Trains, & Automobiles” exchange where Steve Martin spends a good five minutes insulting Candy’s character. The close-up on Candy’s reaction depicts a human being who has been completely  hurt. His response to Martin’s verbal berating is used again at the film’s end, to depict this well-loved Everyman as he  was in life: the real deal (“What you see is what you get.”)

REVELATIONS

McCauley Culkin’s remarks in the film about what a monster his own father was made big news at the Toronto Film Festival. Culkin made three movies with Candy and credited him with giving child performers “respect.” Considering that Culkin was only 8 years old at the time, his scenes with John Candy attest to their good working relationship.

I couldn’t help but think that Culkins’ very anxiety-producing testimony may say more about the dangers of being a child star in Hollywood with a questionable parental figure than about his relationship with Uncle Buck, the character that John Hughes wrote for Candy to play. Culkin’s verdict on stardom in Hollywood was that, growing up a child star in Hollywood, you would either end up “crazy, an asshole, or dead.” He did not come off  as a  relaxed human being in the brief interview appearance. Watching him praise Candy as a co-star who cared made me extremely nervous for Macauley Culkin’s current well-being. Culkin made the perceptive point  that John Hughes made nine films with John Candy and the two were great and good friends in life, including vacationing together.

Hughes, who died in 2009 (and the now deceased Harold Ramis) are shown talking about Candy’s talent. It is quite clear that the two Johns—Candy and Hughes—had a mutual admiration society Macauley Caulkin’s opinion that Hughes should be associated with John Candy more than with Molly Ringwald is insightful. Hughes, himself, credited Candy with giving his scripts their last look; Candy’s final blessing was the most important one to Hughes.

CONCLUSION

With Colin Hanks at the Chicago Film Festival.

 

I met Colin Hanks in Chicago in 2008 when he was in a film based on the life of Kreskin, the Magician, entitled “The Great Buck Howard.” https://www.weeklywilson.com/colin-hanks-qa-the-great-buck-howard-on-oct-27-at-the-chicago-film-festival/

The question was asked of the Q&A audience whether or not anyone in the room had ever seen Kreskin, the Magician’s act, since Buck Howard was loosely based on Kreskin. I not only had seen Kreskin’s act, I once had dinner with Kreskin in New York, because he was a friend of a friend.  My volunteering this bit of trivia led to a fairly lengthy conversation with Colin Hanks (see above) about the film and his role in it.

It is great to see Colin Hanks now directing (this is his sixth film) and doing it so well. In the photo taken that night, 17 years ago, I look like I might be his Mom. He was so nice to me and so kind, much like John Candy.  I am delighted that this film was so good.

Amazon Prime audiences will love it!