“Sr.” isn’t always successful at mining this emotional territory the father-son duo have a casual demeanor, but they’re withholding enough that it takes real skill to unearth the movie’s soul from beneath moments of silence. The film gains a reflective quality whenever each man waxes poetic about the past, but what lies beyond their words is far more intriguing. No matter his millions or his successes, he lives in his father’s shadow, and he’s unafraid to show it. It puts the actor’s quippy on-screen persona into sharp perspective, especially when the two Downeys stand side by side, with the elder, more casually commanding Downey physically towering over his son for once, Downey Jr.’s rapid-fire sense of humor seems not childish, but childlike. playfully traipses through his lush East Hampton home with the “always on” energy of a YouTube family vlogger. Downey attempts to direct the camera and redirect the staging, even though someone else is at the helm. Right from these opening scenes, an enormous contrast emerges between father and son. “Sr.” is weighted far more towards the former, opening with interviews of Downey, his third wife Rosemary Rogers (who playfully claims they’ve been together for “1500 years”), and Downey Jr., introducing unfamiliar viewers to a figure they may not have realized held a vital place in cinema history. The second belongs to Downey - or “Senior” as his kids and grandkids call him - as the legendary director attempts to craft his own epitaph in parallel. himself, as a look back at the life and career of a monumental artist. The first is Smith’s, an interview-heavy retrospective with a video-essay sensibility, produced by Downey Jr. Which is to say: it’s two films in theory. The project is two-pronged, with each overlapping part taking a recursive look at the making of “Sr.” itself. Unfortunately, it takes on this form only ever-so briefly. However, once it reaches its inevitable denouement - Downey’s death from Parkinson’s in July 2021 - it becomes an intimate peek behind the curtain of a Hollywood actor whose face we know, but whose soul we may not, and his candid attempts to remind audiences what he owes to his father. Directed by Chris Smith (Netflix’s Fyre), the black-and-white documentary is a scattered, occasionally unfocused attempt at deciphering a father-son relationship. And yet, they’re cut from the same cloth, a story which “Sr.” attempts to untangle, as it chronicles the last few years of Downey’s life as told from the perspective of his son. The other was an oddball counter-culturalist, whose brazen directorial sensibilities all but ejected him from the mainstream. One is a global celebrity, an actor practically synonymous with the all-consuming Marvel/Disney machine. and his father, Robert Downey (who would later come to be known as Robert Downey Sr.), make for a cinematic odd couple. died during the making of the documentary in his sleep at home in Manhattan on July 7, 2021, 13 days after his 85th birthday.Avengers star Robert Downey Jr. ![]() I’m just happy here.”Īfter a battle with Parkinson’s disease, Downey Sr. It was an idiot move on our parts to share that with our children. “A lot of us thought it would be hypocritical to not have our kids participate in marijuana and stuff like that. As noted by The Guardian, during an interview clip from the ’90s, Downey Sr. When my dad and I would do drugs together, it was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how.”ĭowney Jr.’s spiral into cocaine and heroin addiction in the 1990s becomes a prickly part of the Netflix documentary, as the question is raised over whether his father’s wild lifestyle was partly to blame. said: “There was always a lot of pot and coke around. has claimed his father introduced him to drugs before he was a teenager. He went on to star in seven other films directed by his father, including Greaser’s Palace, Moment To Moment, Up The Academy, America, Rented Lips, Too Much Sun and Hugo Pool.ĭowney Jr. had his acting debut in 1970’s Pound at the age of five. His first wife, actor Elsie Ann Ford, starred in four of his films, including Chafed Elbows, Pound, Greaser’s Palace and Moment To Moment. His films were also noted for starring various members of his family. also starred as an actor in various films, including an appearance in 1997’s Boogie Nights by Paul Thomas Anderson.
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