I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not Review: A bittersweet portrait of a (sometimes) difficult man

PLOT: The life and career of Chevy Chase, from his glowing start as the breakout star of Saturday Night Live’s first season, through his film stardom and eventual fall from grace.

REVIEW: Of all the comedy legends we grew up with, Chevy Chase may be the one whose reputation has taken the biggest beating over the years. While he’s had his share of huge successes, and is still beloved (by some), there’s no denying that he leaves a complicated legacy. Why? Chase has never really been “cancelled,” but his reputation for being an asshole is well established. Right off the bat, this is acknowledged when documentarian Marina Zenovich tells Chevy she’s “still trying to figure him out,” and he snaps at her, saying she’s not “bright enough.” Rather than come off like he’s kidding, it seems like a flash of anger from Chase, who quickly acknowledges that he’s quick to lash out when he feels slighted, but it starts the documentary off on an honest note. While far from a hack job, this isn’t the love letter to its subject Zenovich’s Robin Williams: Come Into My Mind or Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic was. This is more like her documentary on Lance Armstrong, with Chase an irascible interview subject.

Yet, it’s worth giving Chase credit for the fact that he’s willing to sit for such an interview and doesn’t shut down difficult questions — even if he seems highly offended when he’s reminded of a homophobic AIDS joke he made at the expense of a young SNL cast member when he hosted in the eighties (at first he says the actor — Terry Sweeney — is lying, then he backpedals, saying it was a joke, before then saying he doesn’t remember). Others who are interviewed without much nice to say about Chase at all include Kevin Smith, who says when he briefly worked with him he realized every bad story he heard about him was true. In an excerpt from another interview, John Carpenter, who directed him in Memoirs of an Invisible Man, says he almost quit the business after working with Chase. Jay Chandrasekhar, who directed him on the Community episode that got him fired from the show, also tells some harrowing stories, even if he admits he still has affection for him.

Yet, as terrible as Chase often comes off, not everyone hates him. As Zenovich says in one of their interviews, some people hate Chase but others love him. Goldie Hawn, who co-starred with him in Foul Play and Seems Like Old Times, only has positive things to say about him, as does his Vacation co-star Beverly D’Angelo, whose history with Chase runs deeper than most. Dan Aykroyd, Paul Shaffer, and Garrett Morris are the old-school SNL castmates who go on the record about him, and they all seem fond of him, as does Lorne Michaels. Yet, no one pretends he was easy to work with. Former agent Michael Ovitz proves to be an excellent interview, with him saying Chase never recovered from his disastrous choice to host an infamously short-lived talk show (the clips used are excruciating).

Notably, while Chase often comes off as a man who’s exceedingly difficult to work with, he does come off as a devoted and loving husband and father, with his daughters and wife showering him with praise. They try to give context to some of his behaviour, acknowledging that he was badly abused as a child, and also battled a crippling cocaine addiction in the eighties, with him eventually relapsing badly on booze when shooting Community.

Indeed, Community seems like it proved to be Chase’s ultimate downfall when it should have been his comeback, as initially he earned great reviews for the show. But he had a famously troubled relationship with his colleagues, with none of his co-stars willing to discuss him on camera, nor does showrunner Dan Harmon, with whom he publicly feuded. Their absence speaks volumes, as does the lack of famous colleagues like Bill Murray or Steve Martin (although Martin Short is on hand — even if the “amusing” stories he tells about Chase, such as when he beaned Mary Hart in the head with a dinner roll, make him sound insufferable).

What’s especially sad is that Chase, at this point in his career, seems well aware of the mixed legacy he leaves behind, with him deeply hurt that he wasn’t used in any sketches in the SNL50 schedule (he has a point — he should have been given more to do, as SNL without Chase doesn’t exist). At least Chase has found happiness in home life, and he also has a nice retirement gig going, as every December he tours with screenings of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, a movie that’s proved to be his most enduring legacy, and he seems deeply appreciative of his fans and the fact that people still love that movie.

In the end, I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not feels like an honest, fair documentary. It’s not a hack job, and it acknowledges that despite his faults, there are still many people who love him — and any man as well loved by his family as he is must have done something right.

I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not airs January 1st at 9pm ET on CNN.