At a glance
Movie poorly made but still enlightening
Cary Grant was one of the best-known celebrities of the 20th century — to everyone, it seems, but himself.
The former Archie Leach invented a persona from the raw materials of charm, talent, ambition and good looks but spent much of his life searching for peace of mind, the actor wrote in his unpublished memoir.
The film icon is the subject of the informative but poorly made documentary “Becoming Cary Grant,” directed by Mark Kidel and screening tonight on Showtime.
Archie was 11 when his mother suddenly disappeared from his life in Bristol, in the United Kingdom.
Archie’s father, Elias Leach, had his wife, Elsie, committed to an asylum, where a diagnosis of “mania” was made. Soon after, Elias decamped to Southampton, where he started a second family and left Archie to be raised by his grandmother.
Kidel frames the film with Grant’s well-documented LSD therapy
The documentary “Becoming Cary Grant” will be shown at 9 tonight on Showtime. sessions when he was in his early 50s, during which he connected with his childhood, concluded that his inability to trust women was his way of punishing his mother for abandoning him, and later felt empathy for both of his parents.
The film includes commentary from daughter Jennifer Grant; his last wife, Barbara (Harris) Jaynes; longtime friend Judy Balaban, and authors David Thomson and Mark Glancy.
Jonathan Pryce provides Grant’s voice, reading passages of the memoir.
Kidel makes good use of clips from several Grant films at times, but at other times goes terribly off the rails.