QUICK HIT: “Sr.” [2022]

December 26, 2022

2–3 minutes

Rating: R | Runtime: 89 minutes
Release Date: November 25th, 2022 (USA)
Studio: Netflix
Director(s): Chris Smith

I hate to say it, but he was a bit of a snob.

As Robert Downey Sr. explains when questioned about his final film, Rittenhouse Square, the documentary format is unique because you often don’t know what it is your making until it’s done. We witness those sentiments in action during the course of Chris Smith’s “Sr.”—a movie about the elder Downey’s career and creativity as much as a document of the generational love and respect between a father and son (Robert Downey Jr.) as much as a eulogy that pushes those involved to say the things that are difficult to say before time is up. It can be a bit scattershot structurally as a result, but that’s part of its charm. It’s a collection of scenes that work thematically regardless of their narrative relationship to each other.

That makes sense considering it’s exactly what Sr. seems intent on creating once he agrees to let his son produce this film as long as he gets to also make one himself. And by having Smith capture that process, those weird non-sequiturs he’s delivering without stated rhyme or reason end up making it into the “real” project as well. It becomes a living montage of two artists who just happen to be related having fun. There’s something wholesome about the simplicity of that conceit—especially when juxtaposed against the very public reality of where these men have been as far as drug use and reformation is concerned (a subject I will admit gets touched upon much more than I assumed).

I appreciate that last part because it ensures that “Sr.” doesn’t just become a fluff piece about one of the most famous men on earth “setting the record straight” about his fringe icon of an underground film director father whose Putney Swope is now in the Library of Congress’ Film Registry. There’s some real emotion and catharsis at play, regardless of whether either is ever truly mined beyond the moment before humor gets used as deflection. But I guess that’s important too since it appears that’s how these two men have always lived their lives. We see what really matters in their expressions if not their words. The love they share is undeniable.