Colin Hanks' Candy Doc Opens TIFF, Centers Mortality
SkimNews Take
When the subject is universally beloved and a family member is behind the camera, unearthed anecdotes tend to humanize rather than complicate—turning documentary discovery into informal tribute.
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- Colin Hanks directed 'John Candy: I Like Me,' which opens this year's Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday night, framing the film around Candy's lifelong anxiety about mortality after his father died of a heart attack when Candy was five.
- John Candy died in 1994 at age 43 of a heart attack — the same cause of death as his father — and Hanks said discovering that parallel became the launching point for the documentary's narrative.
- Ryan Reynolds cold-called Hanks to suggest the documentary, and Candy's children Chris and Jen Candy were 'adamant' Hanks should direct because of his personal history meeting Candy on the set of his father Tom Hanks' 1984 film 'Splash.'
- Bill Murray, Macaulay Culkin, and Conan O'Brien appear as talking heads; Culkin points out he is now older than Candy was when Candy died, a fact Hanks called 'frankly shocking.'
- Hanks initially resisted making the film because his own mother died at 49, putting him in the same age range that claimed both Candy's father and Candy — he said he'd 'rather just have those memories' of meeting Candy as a child.
Why it matters: Hanks deliberately avoided a hagiographic 'visual Wikipedia entry,' instead using Candy's mortality anxiety as a narrative spine that reframes iconic scenes like 'The Great Outdoors' boat sequence. With Candy's children on board and a Hanks at the helm, the project carries institutional weight for how the comedian's legacy reaches a new generation.
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