Warning: This review contains spoilers for the “The One About Matthew Perry” documentary.
“All great stories have comedy and tragedy in them, and that certainly was Matthew’s story,” shared Mia Bowick Perry in the “The One About Matthew Perry” documentary.
Three years after the actor’s passing, this three-part mini-series was released on Oct. 27 to remember the actor’s professional journey before and after “Friends,” the recognizable humour that characterized him among his family and friends, his hard struggles with addiction and recovery.
Mia Perry Bowick’s testimonies become one of the most remarkable and closest approaches to the actor’s life and struggles in this documentary. Being his half-younger sister from his dad’s side, her voice and perspective are key for the audience to get to know Matthew’s sense of humour, personality and internal battle beyond what the media and he shared while he was still alive.
With nostalgia, a little sadness and a deep love perceivable in her voice and sight, Mia Perry shares how funny and caring his brother was with her, how excited he was when he got Chandler Bing’s part, his main passions and goals, and his lowest and hardest moments through his addiction and recovery periods.
She remained close to his brother until his last days.
Matthew’s long-life friends Roger Castillo and David Pressman are equally crucial pieces in the documentary. Their friendship from their teenage years until Perry’s death in 2023 is essential to realize how young Matthew Perry was and behaved before fame burst into his life. They used to spend time in the Formosa Cafe, a famous bar next to Warner Bros. Studios, in West Hollywood, where many celebrities used to attend at that time.
“We were so immature and so ridiculous,” Castillo said in the documentary. “We were trying to meet girls, and Matt would be friends with girls that he had crushes on.”
Additionally, other voices are included in the documentary to fit the Matthew Perry puzzle.
Marjorie Harris Newman appears in the first episode to share her friendship with him when they were both young actors trying to build an acting career in Los Angeles, in those years when they used to hang out with other friends, laugh together and drink a lot.
“Matthew and I became very close friends, but it took a while to make sense of what Matthew’s upbringing was. It was like a jigsaw puzzle,” Newman admitted.
Matthew’s passion and almost desperation to make people laugh is clear from the beginning of the documentary. Her sister and closest friends remembered him as a funny person, as someone who could use his sense of humour to make other people happy and to leave a mark in the world.
“Boy, did I make people laugh. And I realized that if I have potential of making money at it, I should try to do that,” is what we hear in the first episode from the actor’s voice-over.
However, as the actor has shared in his memoir “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing” and in the “Friends: The Reunion” special, this ability eventually evolved into a serious compulsion.
“I felt like I was going to die if they didn’t laugh. I would sweat and just go into convulsions. I would freak out,” he confessed in the “Friends” special.
Warren Littlefield, former president of NBC Entertainment, and Jeff Strauss, writer and producer of “Friends,” are the voices that approach the audience about the phenomenon that this series meant for Matthew.
They shared that Perry was perfect for playing Chandler and that his casting performance highlighted among others, that he was the last in being casted for the show, and that the chemistry between the cast was instant since the table read. “Matthew’s relationship to that character was pretty strong. There was this overwhelming pool of visible vulnerability in both Matthew and the character, filling silences with jokes and struggling in his relationships with women,” recalled Strauss.
“Friends” meant a turning point in Perry’s life. He passed from being an actor playing small characters to one of the main Hollywood young figures. “Anytime I was with him, we would get followed by paparazzi and get our picture taken too,” shared his sister.
However, as his fans and many people know, Matthew Perry’s life didn’t suddenly become perfect and easy after “Friends”’s success and his portrayal of the sarcastic and insecure Chandler Bing.
An unhealthy relationship with alcohol marked his life since he was 14. “The big terrible thing,” as he refers to his problem with alcohol in his memoir published in 2022, led him to go to rehab 15 times and attend nearly 6,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
The documentary also mentions two of the main movies he participated in — not only for their success and the boost they implied for his acting career, but also for what they meant for him and his battle with addiction.
“Fools Rush In,” released in 1997 and starring Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek, was a source of pressure for Perry, as it was his first movie and he wanted it to be a success.
“He never wanted it to become a Chandler movie. He felt that this movie was going to determine his life, his career,” said Doug Draizin, “Fools Rush In” producer.
Even more importantly, as Draizin shares, it was during the shooting of this movie when Perry had an accident on a jet ski, an accident that led him to take a pill as instructed by a doctor, but that eventually turned into a dependent relationship with pills and an opioid addiction.
“Who knows what would have happened if that accident didn’t happen?” added Draizin.
“The Whole Nine Yards,” released in 2000 and starring Bruce Willis, was also determinant for Perry, as he thought this was a unique opportunity for him to be perceived as a serious actor and someone capable of doing something else besides making people laugh playing Chandler.
Perry’s long battle against addiction and path towards recovery became public knowledge at some point. His attendances to rehabilitation during the shooting of “Friends” and his weight changes in those years made his addiction of everyone’s knowledge.
Despite his addiction, after “Friends” ended, he continued participating in movies and other series, like “The Odd Couple,” “17 Again” and “Mr. Sunshine.” He wrote and starred in “The End of Longing” in 2016, which marked his debut in playwriting, as Entertainment Weekly wrote.
If Matthew Perry’s life had a climax, that would probably be his colon burst in 2018, caused by many years of opioid abuse. This tragedy put him into a coma for two weeks, forced him to stay in the hospital for five months, and made him use a colostomy bag for nine months.
“We’ve had a lot of near misses. There’s been overdoses. There’s been car accidents. There’s been all sorts of stuff. But this was the only time that there were many people going: We have no idea if he’s coming out of this thing,” admitted Mia Perry.
Matthew Perry died on October 23, 2023, due to acute effects of ketamine. “It was shocking how it happened – his death –, but there was a really big part of me that had been prepping for this for a while,” commented Pressman. The last part of the documentary explores the reasons behind his death, as well as the people responsible for providing him with this drug.
However, his legacy is still here. The actor who brought our beloved Chandler Bing to life, who made us laugh with his sarcastic humor and jokes every time he made public appearances, the man who bravely decided to share his history to help other people, will always remain alive.
“The One About Matthew Perry” is now available on Netflix.