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Netflix Docuseries Offers Intimate Look at Matthew Perry's Life and Struggles
Confirmed
In Short: Netflix's three-part docuseries 'The One About Matthew Perry' premiered on Oct. 28, 2023, nearly three years after the actor's death.
The series, directed by Mary Robertson, features interviews with Perry's friends, family, and ex-girlfriends, offering an intimate and sincere look at his life.
Participants include Perry's sister Mia Perry Bowick, friends David Pressman and Roger Castillo, and former co-stars Billy Gallo and Kevin Pollak.
The docuseries does not focus on Perry's death or criminal investigations but rather on his battles with addiction and his personal journey.
Perry's parents divorced when he was a baby, and he lived with his mother in Canada while frequently visiting his father in California.
The series highlights Perry's early career, including his role in 'A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon' and his eventual success on 'Friends'.
The documentary also delves into Perry's struggles with addiction, including his sepsis-induced coma in 2018.
Perry's friends and family speak about their love for him and their despair over his addictions, making the series a moving tribute to both Perry and those struggling with addiction.
The series is not a salacious examination of Perry's life but rather a sincere exploration of his battles and the impact he had on those around him.
Directed by Mary Robertson, the docuseries is produced by Maxine Productions, part of Sony Pictures Television.
The series is a fine feature-length documentary that, while sincere, is unnecessarily extended into a three-hour format.
What this adds
The docuseries does not include interviews with Perry's 'Friends' co-stars or key creative forces from the show.
Perry's memoir, which covered his addiction and recovery, was published in 2022.
What's confirmed
- Perhaps it’s most helpful to begin a discussion of Netflix ‘s three-part The One About Matthew Perry with an acknowledgment of the things that it is not.
What's still developing
- On Oct. 28, 2023, nearly three years ago to the date, Perry was found dead in his hot tub, having drowned with illegally sourced ketamine in his system.
- I read an interview you did for “Quiet on Set” where you talked about the ways those tween shows subtly normalized the sexualization of young people.
- She was an executive producer on the ID miniseries “ The Fall of Diddy,” about the rise and downfall of music mogul Sean Combs, and of “The New York Times Presents,” the FX documentary series that covered everything from Britney Spears’ conservatorship to Facebook scammers.
- In this case, Robertson says in a recent video call, “the common enemy is a disease, not a person.” Her three-part documentary features interviews with close friends, former girlfriends and co-workers who speak about the late “Friends” star on an intimate level (editor’s note: Times culture critic Mary McNamara is among those interviewed).
- “ Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,” the 2024 Emmy-nominated miniseries she and Emma Schwartz directed for Investigation Discovery, looked at tween TV kingpin Dan Schneider and others accused of toxic and unsafe work environments at Nickelodeon.
- But in Robertson’s latest directing project, the Netflix docuseries “ The One About Matthew Perry,” the Big Bad isn’t so much a who but a what.
- So it’s a love letter, but it’s a love letter that’s full of the moments when Matthew stumbled, which he was so clear about himself during his lifetime and when he wrote his memoir too.
- Mia was born to John and Matthew’s stepmother when Matthew was 16 and it is clear from family photos and video footage that they adored each other from the beginning.
- Perry’s parents divorced when he was a baby and he lived with his mother in Canada but flew frequently to California (his memoir details his terror, at five, of making the trip alone with a strap reading “Unaccompanied minor” around his head) to see his father, the actor John Bennett Perry.
- After a childhood that may have been slightly peripatetic but seems to have been loving and essentially stable, Perry – the class clown from an early age – went out to LA to see if he could parlay his comic talents into a career.
- They all talk about the brother and the man with such love and such despair at the addictions he could not beat that it becomes at points not just a moving tribute to Perry but also to the thousands upon thousands of addicts and the people who love and despair of them, but whose stories don’t make international headlines.
- It’s a sincere, generally non-exploitative examination of addiction and celebrity — but not from Perry’s perspective, since Perry wrote a bestselling memoir that covered all of that.