On its floor, Pee-wee as Himself is a loving two-part documentary wanting on the lifetime of the late Paul Reubens, the good comedian thoughts behind the enduring Pee-wee Herman. Nevertheless, even from the movie’s opening moments, the battle is obvious between topic and director. Reubens sits earlier than a digicam, wanting straight down the lens, and talking to his annoyance that his perspective might not be the dominant one within the completed product.
“It turns out you’re not supposed to control your own documentary,” he laments with clear frustration. He guarantees the unseen director that he’ll battle him on this level, including, “You mark my words.” The title card that comes up subsequent performs like a punchline: A Movie By Matt Wolf.
As Reubens died in July of 2023, Wolf has the final giggle right here. However the beloved but controversial comic shouldn’t be the butt of the joke in Pee-wee as Himself. As an alternative, Wolf neatly units up this battle between Reubens and himself as a parallel to the primary thrust of this HBO authentic: Pee-wee versus Paul.
Over the 2 feature-length episodes, the documentary guides audiences by his cheerful childhood and wild years at CalArts, his rise to stardom, the turbulent sexual scandals that made him tabloid fodder for years, in addition to his comeback. By all of it, Reubens and Wolf discover how Pee-wee was a blessing and a curse for the provocative artist. In doing so, Wolf creates as in-depth a portrait of Reubens as any fan of Pee-wee might ever hope for. Nevertheless, which means seeing behind the playful boyish exterior, which had so lengthy been a protect, to see the delicate, wounded man behind him.
Paul Reubens shares his queerness and inspirations in Pee-wee as Himself.
A devoted collector, Reubens not solely opens his Los Angeles dwelling with its absurd wealth of kitschy collectibles to Wolf, but additionally his household photograph albums, revealing footage of him wearing drag in school and on a Halloween in his youth. With lengthy, elegant darkish hair right down to his waist, he was an androgynous imaginative and prescient on the artwork faculty, taking part in Jesus in a single scholar movie and a sultry mermaid impressed within the subsequent. (When he says he was channelling Cher, the inspiration is instantly clear.)
In interviews, Reubens speaks warmly in regards to the artistic discovery of lately, when he first turned associates with Laraine Newman, Phil Hartman, and Elvira, the final of whom additionally shares heat recollections within the doc. However cozy remembrances of twenty-something efficiency artwork and past love takes a heart-wrenching flip as Reubens admits frankly that he realized his queerness can be an impediment to success. So he reduce his hair quick and strove to “pass” so he would possibly make it large.
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When he seems to be into the digicam to elucidate on to a youthful era much less accustomed to brutal homophobia of the Eighties what “passing” means, there is a acquainted pull, like when Pee-wee would look proper out to the youngsters at dwelling, urging them to be their bizarre selves. But right here, our hero admits how he hid.
Reubens will get the final phrase, ultimately.
Wolf’s group is up entrance in regards to the entry they needed to the star. In title playing cards they observe two essential parts to the movie’s context: 1) Wolf and his group interviewed Reubens for 40 hours, and a pair of) In that point Reubens by no means selected to disclose his most cancers analysis to them. So, he was conscious these could be his final days, however the filmmakers weren’t. The movie was treasured to its director and topic in several methods. As such, there’s an electrifying rigidity watching his interviews, as a result of whereas he insists he isn’t fretting about his “legacy,” these very movies present it was on his thoughts.
In a single second, he’ll provide up a deeply private revelation, however within the subsequent, he’ll insist with a pointy or bored tone that he was joking. As Pee-wee’s creator and participant, he was in command of his picture for a lot of his skilled profession. On one hand, his alter-ego was a worldwide sensation, heading hit films like Pee-wee’s Massive Journey, the adored kids’s program Pee-wee’s Playhouse and its spinoff Broadway revival, and countless appearances on discuss exhibits — however at all times in character. This gave Reubens anonymity, but additionally denied him acclaim past his playhouse buffoonery. However all that modified in 1991, over an incident in an grownup movie show in Sarasota, Florida.
When the movie speaks on this scandal and the unrelated obscenity allegations that arose in 2002, Reubens’ perspective takes a backseat. It turns into clear by his absence that Wolf and his group hadn’t gotten a lot footage on these subjects earlier than the actor’s loss of life. In his place, the chums that stood by him, like his private assistant Allison Berry, Debi Mazar, and David Arquette, share what these years of public scorn and isolation have been like for him. There’s an ache in his absence from this second half of the doc, which — deliberately or not — displays the larger lack of Reubens on this planet, each throughout his exile and now, within the wake of his loss of life.
But there is a wonderful resilience in his instance. For every time he was knocked down and publicly scorned, he rose once more, making films and TV exhibits in character (2016’s delightfully daffy Pee-wee’s Massive Vacation) and out (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Thriller Males, Pushing Daisies). For Wolf, it might have been best to make this upswing the tip of his film, remembering Reubens on a excessive observe. As an alternative, he circles again to the person himself, taking part in the self-recorded audio that the multi-hyphenate phenomenon left behind to be used within the film. In it, Reubens’ sounds painfully exhausted, however he speaks plainly about how he hopes to be remembered, attempting one final time maybe to take management over a challenge he apprehensive would outline him with out his path.
In the long run, Pee-wee as Himself shouldn’t be a easy love letter to the enduring character or Reubens. That may counsel Wolf goes straightforward on both, fawning over them with out reservation. That is one thing larger. Wolf provides Reubens the house to talk for himself, permitting within the edit even the moments when the actor — traumatized by tabloid protection — second-guesses his want to share himself. But, what’s clearest on this marvelous film is how Pee-wee was a kitschy assortment of Reubens’ best loves and most-treasured beliefs. Pee-wee’s Playhouse embraces queer efficiency artwork, Andy Warhol work, and punk band graffiti in a candy-colored imaginative and prescient that allowed its subversion to sneak underneath the nostril of Reagan’s ruthlessly conservative America. By bonkers cartoons, outrageous characters, flailing puppets, and secret phrases of the day, Pee-wee urged kids to be seen, heard, and unapologetically themselves.
This was his reward to us as kids. Thought-provoking, boldly humorous, and emotionally riveting, Pee-wee as Himself is his reward to us as grown-ups, because it reveals how arduous that lesson may be, and the way we should preserve pushing ourselves to study it.
Pee-wee as Himself was reviewed out of the 2025 Sundance Movie Competition.
