A three-part Matthew Perry documentary has been criticised for offering a sanitised account of the Friends star’s life, relying heavily on family and long-time friends while revealing little beyond its familiar biography.
The authorised series, The One About Matthew Perry, was made with access to private archives and members of Perry’s immediate family. But rather than examining the actor’s life in depth, it presents what amounts to a largely celebratory portrait of a performer who died from a drug overdose in 2023, aged 54.
Directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Mary Robertson, the series follows Perry from his childhood through his rise to fame as Chandler Bing. Much of the story is told by his half-sister, Mia Perry Bowick, and friends David Pressman and Roger Castillo.
It includes childhood photographs and footage, as well as recollections from people including Hank Azaria. However, none of Perry’s Friends co-stars – Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer or Matt LeBlanc – appear.
Perry’s sister suggests that revisiting his death remains too painful for them. Their absence, however, leaves the documentary without the voices of the people most closely associated with the role that made him internationally famous.
The series repeatedly describes Perry as “complex” and “flawed”, but offers little detail to support those descriptions. His addiction is initially linked to opiates prescribed after a jetski accident, while his depression and use of ketamine are not addressed until the final episode.
There are accounts of an opiate-induced colon perforation that nearly killed him, his work advocating for addiction recovery and a succession of former girlfriends. Yet the contributors overwhelmingly portray Perry as a comic talent of exceptional ability.
The Matthew Perry documentary offers few new revelations
For viewers familiar with Perry’s 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, the documentary provides little that is new. One detail revealed is that his Friends castmates held hands while walking to his coffin at his funeral.
A former girlfriend provides one of the few notably critical moments, saying Perry had cheated on her for a year. It comes only after more than two hours of largely admiring testimony.
The series does put the scale of Perry’s attempts to overcome addiction into perspective. It says he spent more than $7 million on 15 periods in rehabilitation, underwent 30 years of therapy and attended about 6,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
For committed fans, the production offers a substantial amount of archive material and personal testimony. But its three-hour length, combined with its reluctance to challenge its subject, makes it feel considerably longer than necessary.
The One About Matthew Perry is streaming on Netflix.
