Although it runs across two feature length instalments, the biographical documentary Pee-Wee as Himself struggles to get to know actor and subject Paul Reubens. That’s not a criticism, but rather a reflection of director Matt Wolf trying to understand someone who’s made a career out of blurring the lines between a fictional persona and their life off screen. Pleasingly complicated and sometimes lightly confrontational, Pee-Wee as Himself takes as comprehensive of a look at Reubens as it can. While predominantly revolving around forty hours of interview footage granted to the production by Reubens before his passing from lung cancer in 2023, Wolf’s subject vacillates between being effortlessly candid and closely guarded. Reubens proves to be a tough nut to crack, but Wolf (Teenage, Spaceship Earth, Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project) persists no matter where the story leads or how much the film’s namesake wants to fight or bristle about certain topics.
Through a wealth of pre-fame archival materials, Wolf traces Reubens’ early years as a performer, starting out as a kid who idolized the likes of The Little Rascals and Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz and got a start on stage with a regional theatre company in Sarasota, Florida as their resident youth performer. When he grew up and started embracing the more artistic side of performance, Reubens found himself out west and joining up with The Groundlings improv troupe, cultivating his soon to be best known character – the dapper dressed and hopelessly nerdy Pee-Wee Herman – and generating a lot of buzz.
Pee-Wee would take Reubens to new heights of stardom throughout the mid-1980s, with a sleeper hit feature film and a highly successful 50’s styled throwback kids show solidifying his status as a pop culture icon. Reubens became extremely protective not only of his character, but also his personal life as a gay man who spent decades both in and out of the closet for the sake of a career in children’s television. Reubens could be difficult to work with and quick to cut ties with anyone who he thought could hold him back. Then there’s the matter of Reubens often presenting himself publicly as Pee-Wee and not as the human being behind the character, which would add more pressure as a performer and compromised his status in the public eye when a pair of high profile criminal cases threatened to derail his career.
Reubens’ involvement with Pee-Wee as Himself (which is produced in part by the Safdie Brothers of all people) is both Wolf’s biggest asset and thorn in the filmmaker’s side. No one grants a documentarian days worth of interview time without wanting to share something about themselves, but when it comes to certain topics, Reubens remains either blunt or evasive. When it comes to discussing Reubens’ legal troubles, the actor will talk about all of it up to a point, but the second set of charges brought against him in the early 2000s (dubious and ill formed counts of possessing child pornography) still come with a major sting that causes Wolf’s subject to shut down, leading to a major rift between filmmaker and subject.
Anything having to deal with his personal relationships and romances is strictly off limits and not up for wider discussion, with Reubens merely pointing out moments when he was in happy relationships and others that weren’t as rosy without providing intimate details. And whenever asked about having fallouts, disagreements, and professional jealousies with past collaborators, producers, and managers, Reubens is unapologetic, shrugging things off rather ruthlessly and simply saying, “That’s showbiz.” He always wanted all the credit for Pee-Wee’s success (especially Tim Burton’s movie and the character’s stage shows), but he was so immersed in the character at all times that getting such laurels would kill the act, leading to a strange push and pull that would persist throughout Reubens’ boom period. He has a lot to be thankful for, but also a lot of resentment and lists of grievances, some he moved on from (most notably with Burton) and some he took to the grave. And with a caustic sense of wit and no-nonsense demeanour, it’s also hard to tell when Reubens is being sarcastic.
But the flip side of Reubens’ contentiousness is that Wolf is able to make a more complicated movie out of the traditional biopic template. If Reubens doesn’t want to talk about something, there are plenty of other interview subjects in Pee-Wee as Himself that are more than willing to corroborate or refute Reubens’ viewpoints. Much like the line that divides Reubens from Pee-Wee, the film also looks at the divide between the actor and how he was perceived by others. Early on in Pee-Wee as Himself, Reubens says that he finally wants to give the public a chance to know more about him and to explain how he works (possibly because he knew he was dying, something few outside his closest inner circle were aware of), but he’s also keenly aware of his own ego and lack of perspective beyond his own experiences.
Reubens repeatedly states that he doesn’t trust people enough to let them into his life (especially the director), but Wolf and many of the other interview subjects (including longtime friends Debi Mazar and David Arquette) are willing to call bullshit on that. Reubens cared deeply about so many things, including creating one of the most inclusive shows in television history and taking his role as an entertainer for young people seriously, but there were rarely many opportunities to discuss this side of his personality. With Reubens finally able to let his guard down slightly and the involvement of other interview subjects to help supplement the subject’s recollections, Pee-Wee as Himself becomes an enriching look at a person who made themselves deliberately unknowable.
Like other recent documentaries about comedic performers that spanned two, feature length instalments about Garry Shandling, Steve Martin, and George Carlin, Pee-Wee as Himself justifies its length through the value of its scholarship and humanity. Wolf, who has shown an exceptional ability to guide films with loads of archival material in his previous efforts, refuses to play the legend here, and is always keen to see where Reubens’ story will lead him next. Reubens tries to exert a lot of control over the project, but Wolf strikes a nice balance between a filmmaker who wants their subject to be comfortable enough to open up and someone who stands their ground for the sake of the production.
Pee-Wee as Himself explains a lot about its subject, and although it’s only as comprehensive as Reubens was willing to let it be, Wolf has created something expansive and balanced. I’m sure that if he were still alive to see the final results, Reubens would have a lot to say about Wolf’s final edit and things being said about him by others, but in this case, that could be for the best. It’s not a tear down of Reubens’ character and mystique, but Pee-Wee as Himself treats its subject and their work with a lot of humanity, justified recognition, and kindness. Pee-Wee as Himself hits an all too rare sweet spot for biographical celebrity documentaries. It treats the subject as a flawed, flesh and blood human being first and as a legend second.
Pee-Wee as Himself premieres on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the U.S. on Friday, May 23 at 8:00 pm with both parts airing back to back.
