If you’re a fan of John Candy – if you ever saw him light up a screen, big or small, with warmth and hilarity – you’d want a documentary about him to reflect that same larger-than-life spirit.

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I Like Me, a new Prime Video documentary about the legendary actor and comedian, does exactly that. It confirms what fans already know: this was a man bursting with life and laughter, the kind who lifted everyone around him onto his enormous shoulders.

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The film opens with Bill Murray, older now, reflecting on the friend he met at Second City in Chicago in the 1970s. Murray strains to think of anything bad to say about Candy – and that sets the tone.

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Like almost every studio-backed biographical doc, this one starts at the top and works its way chronologically through the life of its subject. There are polished interviews with family members and an impressive lineup of famous friends: Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Tom Hanks, Catherine O’Hara, even Conan O’Brien. Much of the SCTV cast turns up, along with those who crossed Candy’s path during his meteoric rise to movie stardom, from Stripes and National Lampoon’s Vacation to Spaceballs, Uncle Buck, Home Alone, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. 

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As with many funny people, the story begins with tragedy. Candy’s father died at 35, when John was just five – a loss that lingers in the background of the film, a quiet ticking clock beneath all the warmth and laughter. It gives the nearly two-hour runtime an undercurrent of poignancy that swells in the final act as the story approaches his death in 1994.

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Candy, we learn, was a big man who hated when people brought up his size. Yet he comes across as almost impossibly kind, gentle, and generous. His peers call him a comedy icon without hesitation.

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Directed by Colin Hanks – whose very famous dad co-starred with Candy in Splash – and produced by Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort studio, the film is a handsome, steady, and clearly loving portrait. It’s beautifully crafted and sincere, even if its structure feels a bit familiar. There are the expected cues: strings over sad moments, slow pans across old photos, and the montage of famous faces laughing before turning misty-eyed. But the craftsmanship and affection shine through, making the formula feel earned rather than tired.

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At home, Candy’s family memories don’t radically reshape the public persona, but they deepen it. His wife, Rose, and children, Jennifer and Christopher, speak with warmth and grace about the husband and father who left too soon.

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“He was a total actor because he was a total person,” Mel Brooks says during a montage of Candy’s children recalling how closely their dad resembled the characters he played – imperfect, loving, and endlessly human.

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In the John Hughes section – Candy appeared in seven of his films – Macaulay Culkin remembers the actor’s paternal energy, even pulling the young star aside to warn him about his own father. Culkin, who calls his dad a “monster,” says Candy’s warmth was “like a wonderful dagger.”

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“I remember John caring when not a lot of people did,” he says.

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In Candy’s final years, he bought a football team, tried his hand at directing, voiced cartoons, hosted radio shows, and kept saying yes to more movies and appearances. It was a relentless pace, driven by ambition, anxiety, and a people-pleaser’s fear of letting anyone down.

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“The hazard of this business,” O’Brien observes, “is that it’s very unhealthy for people-pleasers … because they’ll take whatever you’ve got and ask for more, and there’s no end to it.”

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There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but that’s beside the point. I Like Me doesn’t reinvent the celebrity documentary. It simply does it well.

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This film will make you laugh, and it will make you cry. More than that, it will make you care about an immensely gifted comedian the world lost far too young.

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“There are horses in the world,” Culkin says at one point, “but it’s rare that you meet a unicorn.”

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I Like Me captures that rare magic – a film as warm, funny, and lovingly made as the man himself. And the best part? When the credits roll, there are dozens of great John Candy movies to fall in love with all over again.