Review: ‘Sr.’ pairs the Robert Downeys in tender tribute to avant-garde filmmaker
“There is a reason that no one is interested in a career in the arts after the age of 25,” says Robert Downey Jr. in a recent interview (see our story here). He adds, “You have to take a new creative and artistic approach to the problem, and that’s what I do. Otherwise, you get bored.”
So, it’s no surprise that the film will feature the “Star Wars” series regular (and Downey’s long-suffering co-star, Andy Serkis) in the role of a young painter in love with his teacher, an unusual pairing for the director we love and adore. The first image of this pair in the film comes from the new, long-promised Star Wars film in a scene where the pair is sitting, with a bowl of soup on the floor, surrounded by paintings of the young man’s works, and talking about his future plans. Downey tells Serkis what his life looks like now, and Serkis tells him what his life looked like when he started painting. Downey says to him, “I never could have done all this. And I never could have done what you are doing.”
Director Peter Jackson is known for working with both big-name actors and little-known newcomers. We know that he’s worked with Downey Jr. in various ways, most notably on a film called The Frighteners where he was credited with being one of the “guest stars.” The two have worked together in the past, but it was in an effort to re-create the “magic” of Serkis’ work at one of Jackson’s most famous projects, King Kong, that Jackson chose to work him and Downey Jr. in the lead roles on that film. So, Jackson knew them both well, as the producer of The Dark World, the first of the three planned sequels to King Kong, which Jackson directed, and the final film, with Jackson also directing. And
