“I’m not talented. None at all. While this depressing self-evaluation can come across as an attempt to win favor from the majority of multimillionaire entertainment icons, Steve Martin manages to make it endearingly humble. Director Morgan Neville sets out to find out what was happening beneath the prop arrow that decorated Martin’s prematurely greying head during his stand-up peak because he truly doesn’t understand why he made it so enormous.
Part 1 romps over Martin’s career from grunt at a Disneyland magic shop to superstardom on Saturday Night Live, a 15-year nightmare on the American comedy circuit, and a 1979 movie turnaround with The Jerk. It’s an outrageous and insane adventure that implies a comedian ahead of his time, eagerly waiting for audiences to catch up. The story is told through voiceover, creative animation, and archive video.
The disjointed structure is peculiar, yet cohesive.
However, Part 2 comes as a surprise. Rather of continuing where Part 1 left off, we find ourselves At Home With Steve Martin in 2021. He spends time with Martin Short, reflects on his challenging connection with his father, and considers the message his art collection conveys about him given that the majority of his works depict lone, isolated individuals and locations. Martin reflects about his films and family life (or, as he puts it, “from Parenthood to parenthood”), weighing the achievements and setbacks of each. His statement, “When I married Victoria Tennant, I liked her a lot,” says it all.
The disjointed structure is peculiar, yet cohesive. Neville employed two crews to work on each segment separately, which produced tonally distinct but cohesively cohesive films: Part 1’s spiky intensity transitions into Part 2’s poignant, looser tone, which reflects the periods of Martin’s life. It’s comical to watch his thirty-year-old rubber limbs thrash around the stage, but it’s strangely heartwarming to watch him cry over John Candy’s performance of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles fifty years later.