Belushi

Written and directed by R.J. Cutler
Featuring Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase and John Landis
Running time: 1 hour and 48 minutes

by Nikk Nelson 

My mom was slightly obsessed with John Belushi. I remember sitting with her when I was very young, watching Saturday Night Live skits like The Olympia Restaurant with Buck Henry and Samurai Hotel. She laughed harder than I ever heard her laugh—that breathless, uncontrollable laughter that sounds totally different from someone’s everyday chuckle. I remember her telling me that John Belushi died before I was ever born. Tears welled up in her eyes. She told me something about people that burn bright in this world and, to this day, I can’t remember if it was something from Keats or Def Leppard. What I never forgot was making a connection between what John Belushi did on TV and how it made my mother react. From that day on, whether consciously or not, I studied comedy. Imitation. Timing. Paradox. Irony. All in the hope that I could, at any time, make my mom laugh. Belushi was one of those comedians constantly in the background of my life—Belushi and Chris Farley, who was more the ‘Belushi’ of my generation. The parallels between their lives are kind of spooky. By the time I got to middle school, genetics and puberty hit me like a ton of bricks, I ballooned up, and learned very quickly that if you were funny, you could still feel valuable to your peers. Luckily, I had been trained by the best. 

So, when the opportunity arose to review R.J. Cutler’s biographical documentary, Belushi (2020), I didn’t hesitate. Whenever I can learn anything about how my comedic idols truly live or lived, I’m all about it. And the trailer promised that this was the most intimate look at Belushi’s life ever committed to film. I found it to be that and more. I’ve probably seen every A&E biography or biography adjacent (e.g. Animal House) program ever produced about John Belushi. There’s even one I remember with an Unsolved Mysteries type reenactment and Dr. Drew Pinsky talking about addiction. None of them, I felt, really did any justice to Belushi himself. The first ever college professor I had in a Communications 101 course told us that, if we ever give a eulogy, we shouldn’t romanticize the dead. Acknowledge that the person was human and had just as many flaws as they did virtues. That’s what I loved most about this documentary. It is very careful to acknowledge Belushi’s genius as well as his shortcomings. It is one of the most well-rounded documentaries I’ve ever seen, period. 

Its overall composition reminds me of another great biography, American: The Bill Hicks Story (2009) where interviewees talk under a scroll of photographs, letters and animated sequences. Belushi features no talking heads at all, only voices playing under the content. My only criticism is, I sometimes lost track of who exactly was talking but it never took me out of the overall experience. It’s a comprehensive look at Belushi’s life and, clocking in at close to two hours, every part of his life is given its due. Where most biographies tend to fast forward to when Belushi got to Second City in Chicago, this program takes its time and constantly circles back to moments and influences in John’s life that really help explain the person he was. It’s often heartbreaking. I cried several times, especially thinking about my mother, who I eventually lost to drug addiction too. Watching Belushi, I felt closer to him, which made me feel closer to her. It brought back both the memories of her on the couch, howling laughing at Belushi as Captain Kirk, and the memories of watching her spiral out of control from drug addiction. But that’s what any person is and how they should always be remembered. We are complete people and Belushi is a complete biography.  

Available to watch on Showtime, November 22.

Read more from Nikk in the pages of the fall 2020 print issue of Moviejawn, available here.