A John Candy documentary gives Toronto film fest a tender and
appropriately Canadian opening night
[September 05, 2025]
By JAKE COYLE
TORONTO (AP) — “I wish I had more bad things to say about him,” Bill
Murray says in the opening moments of the documentary “John Candy: I
Like Me.”
It has always been hard to find a negative word about Candy. The great
Canadian comedian and actor not only radiated a warm, down-to-earth
friendliness in movies like “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” “Uncle
Buck” and “The Great Outdoors,” he was that way off screen, too. As Mel
Brooks says in the film, “He was a total actor because he was a total
person.”
“John Candy: I Like Me,” directed by Colin Hanks and produced by Ryan
Reynolds, is a tribute not just to Candy the actor, but Candy, the man.
On Thursday night, it premieres as the opening night film of the Toronto
International Film Festival. For a beloved Canadian icon like Candy,
whose nickname was “Johnny Toronto,” the setting could hardly be more
fitting. To reference Candy’s cameo in “The Blues Brothers,” it’s an
occasion that calls for orange whips, all around.
“I can’t tell you the amount of meetings we had about when the movie can
be made, and maybe we can do this festival or that,” Hanks says. “And I
just kept thinking in the back of my mind: Well, this is a gigantic
waste of time. It should just be at Toronto. Period. The End.”
“John Candy: I Like Me,” which will debut on Prime Video on Oct. 10, is
a kind of cinematic eulogy for Candy, who died of heart failure at the
age of 43 in 1994. Long ago as that was, “I Like Me” is the first
feature documentary to tackle Candy, who might be even more popular
three decades after his death.
“Part of me hates the fact that John maybe never really saw how beloved
he was,” Reynolds says. “He left something really lasting. He died of a
heart failure and ironically the thing he left behind was his heart.
That’s the thing that stays.”
Hanks, Reynolds and Candy’s children, Jennifer and Chris Candy, spoke in
interviews before the TIFF opening about the making of “John Candy: I
Like Me,” the title of which comes from one of Candy’s most memorable
lines from “Trains, Planes and Automobiles.” But it also serves as a
guiding ethos to the documentary.
Candy, who grew up in working-class Ontario and whose father also died
young, had his own long-range struggles with that loss. He also, through
a people-pleasing smile, dealt with the sometimes insensitive way his
size was discussed in the media. Says Reynolds: “He was self-effacing
his work, but not self-loathing. He didn’t make a sport of punching
down, not even on himself.”
“He left, but he did leave us some tools to get through this,” says
Chris Candy, 40, speaking alongside his 45-year-old sister. “That would
be through the way he raised us and also saying it’s OK to talk to
someone if you have heavy feelings.”
For the Candys, “I Like Me” is an extremely emotional experience but one
they’re grateful for. They have each navigated their own way through an
upbringing marked by their father’s loss. It was years before Chris
could visit his father’s grave site or rewatch his movies. Once he did,
he was astonished at his father’s talent.
For Jennifer, her father's movies helped carry her through grief.
“I jumped in and watched everything. All through college, I made sure I
had the whole DVD collection,” she says. “For me that was a constant
reminder to hear his voice. We had cassette tapes of his ‘Radio Kandy’
show that I would just listen to all the time in the car during high
school.”
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Colin Hanks, right, director of the documentary film "John Candy: I
Like Me," poses for a portrait with producer Ryan Reynolds in front
of a photograph of Second City comedy performers including John
Candy, far left, to promote the film during the Toronto
International Film Festival on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Toronto.
(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
 Hanks, whose directorial work
includes the 2015 documentary “All Things Must Pass: The Rise and
Fall of Tower Records,” wanted to find a thread for the film that
went beyond tribute. To him, the movie is about drilling down on
what gave Candy such an everyman quality. What made him, to
millions, like their Uncle Buck. Hanks experienced Candy's effect
firsthand as a child visiting his father, Tom Hanks, on the set of
“Splash.”
“I have vivid memories of visiting on set. He was just one of my
parents’ friends, someone they worked with,” says Hanks. “He had a
way, even as a kid, of making you feel incredibly important.”
“I had been on the periphery of the most intense fame you can have,
as well as a much smaller version myself,” adds Hanks. “It is an
adjustment. It is hard to navigate. Not that it’s not amazing and
great, but that idea of how much you can actually give of yourself
to people.”
Reynolds, born and raised in Vancouver, has been a fan of Candy’s
since growing up watching “SCTV” reruns. His fondness for Candy, in
many ways, has been an influence throughout his career.
“I feel like in the bigger movies I’m always either Del Griffith or
Neil Page, from “Planes, Trains,” says Reynolds. “I tend to really
fluctuate back and forth between those guys.”
As his own fame grew, alongside with his ability to take some
authorship of his films, Reynolds has populated his movies with
references to Candy. Easter eggs adorn the “Deadpool” films. In one
moment, he utters the “I like me,” albeit in a much different
context. Reynolds had the prop department make a mug with the same
quote. A Chrysler LeBaron appears in the background of another
scene. He even licensed the book “The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia
Guide to Planes, Trains” so it could make a cameo in all the
“Deadpool” movies.
“I like having him around,” says Reynolds. “I feel safer. I feel
better. I also feel maybe just a skosh more honest.”
“John was a good person when nobody was watching, and I think that’s
an increasingly scarce resource these days, in an age where
everything is not only seen, it’s perfection,” Reynolds adds. “It’s
like an epidemic. All we see is perfection and curation. Nobody
wants to try anything new because nobody’s willing to suck at
anything.”
For Jennifer and Chris, “John Candy: I Like Me,” awash in memories
of their father,” is a kind of time capsule that, like their dad's
other movies and radio show recordings, will be long treasured.
“I’m fortunate that I will always have this,” says Chris. “And I
love it for that.”
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