Becoming Cary Grant

Interesting psychological and existentialist documentary on Hollywood star Cary Grant. There is some about his career, including the very begining as an acrobat in England and singing in Broadway. However, the great enphasis lies on the obscure man beging the glamourous Cary Grant: Archie Leach. Serious family problems, LSD treatment and other experiments and therapies, a bad "serial" husband, dubious sexuality and potential mysoginy... many issues are explored in varied depth in its less than one hour length. With lots of grrat footage, the film also highlights his roles in cinema in which Cary Grant faces somehow Archie Lech, the man behind the mirror.

Lets get the first thing out of the way. Cary Grant is one of the performers I admire greatly. I have not researched his career in depth but I was aware of his real name. Learning about his troubled childhood and his relationship with his mother and women was enlightening. I was shocked to find out he used LSD, under medical supervision, to better understand himself and was more shocked to find out about his weaknesses. He did turn those weaknesses into a strength though and became a better performer by understanding himself.

Recommended viewing for his fans and amateur shrinks.

The Cary Grant/Archibald Leach story is a treasure trove almost impossible to fail at. In fact it's such a compelling story that despite the failings of the director one does stay through to the end watching this tale. And personally I don't have a problem with missing bits of the story like other reviewers do or with the somber tone of the story. The somber tone, is an integral part of Cary's life, and as long as the director tells the story I think he does have the right to omit parts that don't fit into the story he wishes to tell.

On the other hand I did find his pretentiousness very annoying. Having such a wonderful source material the director Mark Kidel had to show how he entered Cary Grant's mind and deciphered his innermost secrets. So he keeps on showing us scenes from Grant's therapeutic sessions with LSD pretending he knows what Grant saw there. It's groundless, pretentious and completely unnecessary for the story itself. But it's being repeated over and over again, and I found it to be detrimental to the movie

Becoming Cary Grant (2017)

*** (out of 4)

This here is like many recent documentaries where the subject themselves tells their story. The subject here is the one and only Cary Grant who we hear from interview clips as well as actor speaking from an unreleased autobiography.

If you're familiar with the life of Grant then I seriously doubt that you're going to learn anything new here. We start off hearing about his LSD trips later in life and then we bounce back to his troubled childhood, which includes losing his mother to mental illness and then reaching out to her decades later. We cover his move to Hollywood, his rise to stardom as well as various roles throughout his career.

Other documentaries have covered this stories several times before, which is why I say there's really not too much new stuff here. What new stuff there is includes some home movies that Grant filmed, which are quite interesting and towards the end there's an interview with his last girlfriend as well as his daughter. Truth be told, I would have preferred more to do with these two ladies as I'm sure they had some great stories to share.

As it is, BECOMING CARY GRANT does a nice job for those unfamiliar with the life of the actor but at the same time I wasn't really bowled over by the structure of the film. I think some of the visuals go a bit too far as the story itself is strong enough to hold the viewer's attention. Still, fans of Grant will want to check this out.

I agree with the other reviewer that it is perfectly extraordinary in 2017 that a documentary of Cary Grant should fail not only to discuss in any way his reltionship with Randolph Scott, with whom he lived, more or less as a couple, for more than ten years but does not even once mention Scott's name. While spotting "gay" tendencies in figures of the past can be a very tedious sport, there is not really any serious doubt about Grant's bisexuality and a biography that ignores it, while talking extensively of his difficulty in discovering who he was, is ridiculous. Had the film been made fifty years ago, one would understand, but in 2017 it is almost beyond belief. It is not as if any of it makes one jot of difference to the fact that he was a marvellous actor! or for that matter detracts in any way from his stature as a person. Even though one appreciates that the omission is out of respect for the views of Grant's daughter, who appears in the film, It is still crass dishonesty on the part of the film-maker and rather foolish jealous denial of the past on the part of the descendant.