Since premiering “Sr.” at the Telluride Film Festival, Downey Jr. has noticed how the film becomes a projection of others’ experiences losing a parent. Toward the end of the film, Downey Jr. goes into his father’s room, with the camera trailing, to find some final answers. “I was going to get to the bottom of it for once and all,” he says. Like most sons seeking such definitude, Downey Jr. came out, he felt, emptyhanded.
But in “Sr.,” the two films each are making ultimately seamlessly meld into one, suggesting a deeper understanding between Jr. and Sr. than either might have readily admitted. There are also ongoing discoveries.
After such an unconventional indoctrination to cinema as a kid, Downey Jr.’s genuine, live-wire performances surely owe something to the frenetic energy he had known on his father’s sets. “I think I had the advantage of it already feeling natural before I came into that quote-unquote industrialized version of entertainment,” Downey Jr. says.
He often found with other directors something just as comfortable and rewarding. He calls Richard Attenborough (“Chaplin”) “a super wise loving grandfather.” Jon Favreau (“Iron Man”) was “like a brother.” Movies were and still are, Susan Downey says, “the family business.”
“It’s very odd, too, because we’re doing this film with Director Park (Chan-wook) now called ‘The Sympathizer’ where I’m doing a lot of different characters. It’s not experimental at all. It’s very well-fleshed out. But it’s kind of reminding me of the Sr. experience,” says Downey Jr. “You get dressed up, you try a character and we’re going to film it.”
Stuck by that fresh realization, Downey Jr. exclaims: “We’re finally figuring everything out in real time! Live from the Gestalt Therapy Epicenter of Southern California!”
Then he sighs. “So I’m still working for Dad.”