Netflix's three-part docuseries The One About Matthew Perry is an intimate and sincere look at addiction and celebrity, but one that buries its best material under too much familiar filler, according to The Hollywood Reporter's review.
Directed by Mary Robertson, whose credits include Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, the series is neither a lurid account of Perry's death and the criminal investigations that followed nor a star-studded tribute to his comic talent, THR wrote.
No Friends, by design
None of Perry's Friends co-stars appear, and the show's key creative figures are absent too. Former NBC entertainment president Warren Littlefield and first-season writer Jeff Strauss are the closest it comes. Other parts of Perry's career are represented by collaborators such as producer Doug Draizin, actor Nate Torrence and director Jonathan Lynn. THR's critic argued that skipping the A-listers keeps the focus on Perry rather than on what famous names have to say about him.
Instead, much of the story is told by people outside the spotlight: Perry's younger sister, Mia Perry Bowick, who became a psychotherapist after watching his long struggle; early friends Roger Castillo and David Pressman; former girlfriends René Ashton and Rome; Tim Harrington, who met Perry in recovery and lived at his house for a year; and West Huddleston, who worked with him on drug court advocacy. Bowick's memories of learning about his first stint in rehab from a tabloid, and of the day he died, are described as heartbreaking.
Where it falls short
The review's main complaint is length. It argues the series spends too much time on recycled talk-show clips, Littlefield's well-worn observations and general commentary on why Friends worked, and that a roughly 100-minute feature would have been sharper.
Still, THR credited Robertson with handling the hardest moments with subtlety, leaving viewers with the painful sense that loving someone and doing everything possible is sometimes still not enough.
Reporting sources: The Hollywood Reporter, “‘The One About Matthew Perry’ Review: Netflix’s Intimate and Sincere but Overly Padded Docuseries”.
