I leave the preview screening of I Am Chris Farley feeling strangely affected. I realize that I hadn’t considered how much of my adolescent psyche was shaped by the characters Chris Farley played on SNL and in the SNL franchise films of the mid-90’s. I didn’t realize that I am now just a year older than Farley was in 1997, when he died of an overdose of cocaine and morphine. Or that some of his most iconic characters seeped into my sense of what it means to be fat and funny (terms I occasionally self-identify by).
I was about 9 or 10 years old when I started staying up late at night to watch Saturday Night Live. I immediately understood the magic of the show and started to emulate the performances. I was too young to realize how much of a master Farley was, but I very much remember that Christina Applegate sketch where Farley’s famous Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker, was unleashed into the world.
There’s an uncanny overlap between this documentary and the character Matt Foley, whose motivating shtick was to caution teenagers against making the choices he’s made, as evidenced by the fact that he now lives “in a van down by the river.” In a way I’m not sure was intended, this documentary acts as a cautionary tale against the toxic nexus of fast fame, low self esteem, substance use and abuse, and, well, being fat. Except instead of ending up in a van by the river, Farley ended up in a cemetery in Wisconsin at the age of 33.
The doc flirts a little more than I had anticipated, but not enough to really satisfy me, with the connection between Farley’s weight-related self esteem issues and his comedy. A set piece in the film focuses on Farley’s breakout SNL sketch, a Chippendales audition, in which he takes his shirt off and dances next to the chiseled Patrick Swayze. His reluctance privately to play the “fat fool”, but ultimately unbridled commitment to the choice on stage, are both acknowledged by the film, but I’m left wishing someone would have spoken to the ways in which Farley was pigeon-holed on SNL. The film acknowledges how boundary-breaking that performance was in some ways, but I wonder if the magic lies more in the audacity and totality of his commitment rather than the cultural norm which underwrites that joke, that fat can never equals erotic.
I am Chris Farley, a project executive produced and heavily featuring Farley’s brother Kevin, does a coherent and at times quite cinematic job celebrating the singular comedic force of nature that Farley was, while also paying more than lip service to his more private struggles. Don’t expect anything too gritty or unflattering here—this is a loving tribute made to celebrate his life.
Those unfamiliar with Farley would do well to see it and discover his singularity. Those familiar will likely enjoy the reminder of how brightly he shone. I leave the film feeling vaguely implicated, somehow, in a culture that can’t quite decide how to embrace folks who are funny and fat.
I Am Chris Farley plays at the Rio Theatre from August 25, 28, and 29. Tickets and showtimes available here.
