“Sr.” review: A heartfelt tribute that sometimes loses sight of its own subject | AFI FEST

Saying goodbye to a parent is a difficult but normal part of life. For most of us, saying goodbye is usually a solitary, quietly poignant experience, but, if you are a filmmaker, the grieving process can be a shared experience, one that can strike a chord with others. In 2020, documentarian Kirsten Johnson made Dick Johnson is Dead, a cinematic tribute to her father, made with his permission and cooperation, as an homage to him and a way to prepare to say goodbye. Dick Johnson was an ordinary person, but, through the eyes of his filmmaker daughter, we all learned to appreciate that every person has a story worth telling, no matter how famous—or not.

So, when a famous artist/filmmaker decides to make a film to say goodbye to their own famous artist/filmmaker parent, there is an expectation that the tribute will be especially moving, heartfelt and artistically made. Such is the case with “Sr.,” a new documentary about ‘70s indie filmmaker Robert Downey, produced by his famous actor son, Robert Downey, Jr. Directed by documentarian Chris Smith, “Sr.“ explores Robert Downey’s (known affectionately as “Senior”) career as an independent, underground filmmaker, as well as his relationship with his family, especially that with his son, Robert Downey, Jr., funnily enough referred to just as Robert, not “Junior.” As Parkinson’s disease continued to grab hold of Senior’s mobility and ability to pursue his craft, his son decides to help him make his final film project, which, intentionally or not, turns into an incredibly meta experience of a film within a film about the end of a well-lived life and a relationship between father and son.

Shot in black-and-white, there is a clear effort to subvert the irreverence that marked Senior’s career as an underground filmmaker. But Senior’s wicked sense of humor and disinterest in adhering to a traditional narrative still shines through, as the best moments are when Senior’s wry, dry and absolutely hilarious observations and reactions take the viewer by surprise and underline the fact that even age and ill health cannot erase the spirit. Quite purposefully, there are few scenes in the film that are maudlin, even when father and son are discussing the most difficult and most personally affecting memories, such as Lou Gehrig’s Disease (which took the life of Senior’s second wife) or Robert’s infamous addictions (and Senior’s role in them), which make the experience feel less manipulative and much more authentic. There are many family scenes, at home with grandchildren and many conversations done over Zoom or the phone, due to the pandemic restrictions. The film took many years to make, but, with Senior rapidly declining during the height of the pandemic (finally passing away in 2021), most of the film is a quite personal experience, shot inside his apartment or walking down empty New York City streets.

There has been much said, mostly by the filmmakers themselves, that Sr. is a film that follows the credo of Senior’s life itself, which was “You don’t know what’s going to happen next.” The film is not just an inside look at a filmmaker’s process, it’s not just a loving tribute of a father by a son, it’s not just a retrospective of an artist’s life, it is all of this and more, and it jumps around freely, the only constant being Senior’s cool and casual approach to it all.

The more we get to know Senior, the more we want to get to know him, and, even though there are several clips from his films and brief interviews with a few of his stable of actors, the film moves away from them too quickly. For a film about artists, this one spends surprisingly little time exploring Senior’s actual artistic endeavors. Instead of doing a deep dive into Senior’s filmography and process, his career feels summarized, leaving the audience longing for more time with these oddball characters and being immersed in the bizarre, underground world of film that was such an important part of independent cinema in the ’60s and ‘70s, which inspired so many of the great filmmakers of today, including Paul Thomas Anderson, who revered Senior so much he even put him in a couple of his films.

Instead of “Sr.” being a true tribute to an influential artist and innovative, irreverent and imaginative mind, the film ends up feeling more like a Robert Downey Jr., redemption story, as the camera is pointed just as much at the Marvel superstar as it is at the subject of the film and goes a long way to softening the edges of Robert Downey Jr.’s difficult and colored past. Because of this, Sr. ends up feeling “sweetly narcissistic,” to borrow a line from the film, which serves to undermine the very thing it’s trying to achieve.

Surely, Netflix is counting on (and perhaps insisted on) the star power of Robert Downey, Jr. to draw viewers to this sweet documentary about a guy that only true cinephiles remember, but the emphasis on the son takes away from the most interesting guy in the room, a guy we would have loved to have gotten to know a bit more.

Still, “Sr.” is a loving tribute and gives us a glimpse of a kind of character who we wish we had more of in this life and certainly in the film business, a creative thinker, an artist who swims against the tide, and follows and indulges in his passions to the final moments of his life. We should all be so lucky.

Grade: B-

This review is from 2022 AFI FEST. “Sr.” will be released December 2 on Netflix.