★★★★☆I’m Chevy Chase… And You’re Not!

Growing up in the 80s there were three very distinctive influences on my personality that still exist to this day: Bill Murray (particularly Venkman from Ghostbusters), Steve Martin, and Chevy Chase. So watching I’m Chevy Chase… And You’re Not! came with a little trepidation. This was one of my cinema heroes growing up, yet over the years his acerbic reputation has only sharpened, often in a not-so-positive light. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect once the veil was removed from the cantankerous Cornelius Crane Chase.

Directed by two-time Emmy Award winner Marina Zenovich, this is an authorised documentary, but crucially, it never feels sanitised. Zenovich positions the film as a clear-eyed examination of a man defined by extremes: enormous comedic gifts paired with striking personal flaws. Chase’s huge range is on display here, from his legendary Saturday Night Live screen test to his run as a Hollywood comedy leading man, but so too is the complexity and contradiction beneath the bravado.

This is not a cosy victory lap. It is, in many ways, a deliberately acerbic film. Sharp-tongued. Occasionally sour. Frequently uncomfortable. Much like Chase himself, the documentary has bite, and it refuses to smooth the edges for easy consumption.

The early sections chart Chase’s role in launching Saturday Night Live, with interviews from Lorne Michaels and several original cast members that are refreshingly stark. There’s admiration, yes, but it’s tempered with candour. The film makes no attempt to rewrite history. Chase is presented as brilliantly funny, fiercely intelligent, and often difficult. As the documentary itself notes, you either love Chevy… or you don’t.

That divide becomes increasingly evident as the film progresses. A number of figures declined to participate, including the Community cast, and their absence is telling. Rather than weakening the film, it reinforces its central tension. This is a portrait shaped as much by omission as inclusion.

In recent years we’ve seen a wave of documentaries revisiting 80s comedy icons – STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces, Being Eddie, John Candy: I Like Me. Most are affectionate, protective, and understandably warm. I’m Chevy Chase… And You’re Not! takes a tougher route. Zenovich pulls the curtain back further, lingering on darker moments, fractured relationships, and the consequences of behaviour that, for years, was dismissed as simply part of the act.

One of the more insightful contributors is Ryan Reynolds, who openly admits he was such a fan of Chevy Chase that his performance in Van Wilder is essentially a Chase impression. Which, let’s be honest, we all clocked at the time. Reynolds isn’t just name-checking an influence here, though. He pinpoints one of the documentary’s most telling revelations, namely Chase’s admission that he was physically abused as a child. It’s one of the darker moments in the film, and Reynolds connects the dots with surprising clarity, suggesting how that early trauma may have shaped the armour, the abrasiveness, and the defensive sarcasm that became Chase’s default setting. Coming from Reynolds, a self-confessed devotee of 80s comedy and the producer of John Candy: I Like Me, the insight carries weight. This isn’t gossip or armchair psychology. It’s one comedian recognising the cost behind another’s persona.

What makes the film compelling is its refusal to editorialise too heavily. Zenovich allows Chase, his family, friends, and former collaborators to speak, often letting contradictions sit uncomfortably in the open. The result is a portrait that feels honest rather than judgmental. Chase can be caustic, brittle, and self-sabotaging, but he can also be disarmingly funny, self-aware in flashes, and undeniably magnetic.

There are also moments of unexpected levity. It’s genuinely fascinating to track the evolution of Chase’s ever-changing collection of coloured glasses rims – a small, oddly revealing detail that becomes a visual shorthand for a man who has always liked to control the frame he’s seen through.

The film’s most revealing sequences come during a National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation screening, where Chase stands before a room full of fans. Despite his age, despite the controversies, this is where he truly comes alive. The timing still lands. The audience responds instinctively. In those moments, the star persona snaps back into focus, reminding you why Chevy Chase mattered, and why he still does.

This is not a documentary designed to make you fall back in love with Chevy Chase. Instead, it asks you to reckon with him. It presents a complex, contradictory figure without apology or excessive defence. As a piece of essential cinema, it succeeds by resisting myth-making and choosing honesty instead.

And if the documentary gods are listening, the queue starts with Bill Murray. Just saying.

A sharp, unsparing, and often uncomfortable portrait of a comedy legend. I’m Chevy Chase… And You’re Not! doesn’t excuse its subject, nor does it tear him down. It simply shows him, warts and all – and that makes it one of the most revealing comedy documentaries in recent years.