Sr — Robert Downey Jr.’s documentary is hijacked by its subject

There was a time when the name Robert Downey wasn’t synonymous with box-office bankability but with anarchic underground cinema. In Sr, the actor Robert Downey Jr pays tribute to a film-maker little known to today’s general public, and to a father who always seemed a little unknowable to his son.

At least, that is the intention. The film that Downey Jr and director Chris Smith set out to make is hijacked partway through by its subject. Unenthused by the prospect of being celebrated in a straightforward retrospective, Downey Sr impishly sets about making his own documentary. What we see as Sr, then, is a shaggy hybrid of the two projects.

The more conventional part of the feature does a good enough job of introducing viewers to Downey Sr’s oeuvre of absurdist satires and of considering his legacy in indie film-making. There are also many touching, bittersweet scenes in which the two Downeys discuss their relationship and tentatively broach their mutual problems with substance abuse.

But Downey Sr isn’t much interested in reflecting on his life and career. Rather than talking us through his idiosyncratic process, he takes us along with a camera in New York, drifting aimlessly between anecdotes and random observations about his surroundings. His keen eye and unaffected enthusiasm are undiminished even as he struggles with Parkinson’s disease.

While Sr can feel disjointed and insistently meta as a biography, it manages to give viewers a warm, intimate sense of this charming oddball. That it’s such a pleasure to spend time in his company makes the film’s last section, which leads up to his death in July 2021, all the more impactful.

With his father bedbound, Downey Jr goes to shoot a final interview. What might’ve felt intrusive simply seems like the most natural and true form of communication for this film-making family.

★★★★☆

On Netflix from December 2

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