Sr.

Robert Downey Jr. turns the camera on his dad -- and to a lesser extent, himself -- in this intimate Netflix documentary about two guys in the movie business who eventually found their way.

Before he became the world’s most famous actor, for much of his young life Robert Downey Jr. was, by his own proclamation, known as “Bob Downey’s son.”

Though would of course be a reference to Robert Downey Sr., a filmmaker known deeply, if not widely, for his puckish experimental movies like “Putney Swope” and “Greaser’s Palace.” Though his work never broke into the mainstream, it influenced generations of other filmmakers, notably Paul Thomas Anderson, who even cast Downey Sr. in “Boogie Nights.”

Downey Jr. made his acting debut at age 5 in one of his father’s films, “Pound,” in which 18 actors portray dogs anxiously waiting in a shelter for adoption — if that gives you any sort of flavor of what Sr’.s oeuvre was all about.

Over the past three years, as his dad’s health began to fail owing to Parkinson’s, Downey Jr. decided to make a documentary about their relationship — partly to work out some huge lingering issues they have, but also as a clear tribute to his father, leveraging his own popularity to shine some light on the weird, wonderful accomplishments of “Sr.,” as the new film debuting on Netflix is succinctly titled.

Pops, as Jr. calls him, agreed to do it, on one condition: that he would get to direct his own version of the movie, too. Indeed, the film is almost as much about the making of the film as typical talking-head documentary, as Jr. interweaves scenes directed by himself with those his father helmed.

The result is an intimate collaboration between father and son who both made their mark in the movies, but still had a lot to learn about each other.

Sr. passed away in July 2021, so this film will serve as something of his cinematic epitaph.

Jr. owes his father a lot — both in terms of benefits and blame. He literally grew up around filmmaking, with his dad frequently editing his movies with baby Jr. next to him in a crib. He says he came to regard the sound of wooden clapboards marking the starting and ending of shooting as one of the most natural rhythms in his life.

Jr. also owes his addiction to drugs to his father, who by his own account became hooked on cocaine and marijuana during his son’s formative years. Not only was Jr. exposed to this destructive lifestyle, he literally participated in it, with Sr. supplying him with drugs as a child.

That might seem unforgiveable, and behind Sr.’s easygoing, affable manner he clearly harbors deep pain about passing on this legacy to his son. But both men recovered and have now enjoyed decades of sobriety and success. They’ve managed to move past the unpassable.

In addition to plenty of interaction between the generations through in-person meetings, phone calls and video chats during COVID, we also hear from Sr.’s contemporaries who observed or participated in his movies, including Alan Arkin and Norman Lear.

Arkin probably hits closest to the difficult mark of describing Sr.’s aesthetic — wandering or non-existent narratives, absurdist satire, social commentary mixed with surrealism — as “benign nihilism.” Lear simply dubs it “insanity.”

In between these testimonials, the documentary more or less chronicles Sr.’s career chronologically film by film. He was just a regular working guy who decided he could make movies, and found his no-budget 16mm romp “Chafed Elbows,” about a mother and son in a romantic relationship, favorably reviewed in the New York Times and become a minor hit.

A born troublemaker, Sr. joined the army underage by taking his father’s name (Elias was his given one) and found himself spending a lot of time in confinement for this offense or that. A sergeant finally suggested he spend his time in the hoosegow writing, which planted the seeds of a wild imagination that would later spring forth.

Sr. rarely started a movie with more than a concept, preferring to just keep the cameras rolling and see what happened. We see that in this film, where the old man is constantly fascinated by all the world around him, demanding the camera person turn their lens to capture a breathtaking sunset or a waddling of ducklings.

“It’s called follow the film,” Sr. says with his usual understated flippancy.

After his first marriage ended, Sr. started to hit bottom around the time of making 1975’s “Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight,” when his substance use began to overwhelm his life and he grew distant from his children. He credits his remarriage to Laura Ernst as saving him, and then he got to return the favor by caring for her as she succumbed to a devastating illness.

It’s not hard to see the subtext of redemption in Sr.’s life, and in Jr.’s motivation for making this testament to his dad as he slowly fades before our eyes.

If you’re hoping to gain an inside look into Jr.’s head, then this is not the movie for you. Apart from a scene where he speaks to his therapist about his reasons for memorializing his father through the making of the documentary, the son seems happy to loiter in the background, coming across as a gleefully involved family man.

A scene where Jr. brings his son, Exton, to visit Sr. in his New York apartment where he’s bedridden is both heartrending and uplifting, as three generations acknowledge they are exchanging goodbyes without ever explicitly saying so.

We do get to see Jr. warble out a bombastic version of Schubert’s “Fischerweise” in German, recreating a performance his teenage self did 40 years ago to garner rare praise from his father. It’s loopy, giddy and nonsensical, and therefore could slide right into one of Sr.’s films.

On his dad’s mutual fondness with Paul Thomas Anderson, Jr. says, “It’s no mystery that Paul Thomas Anderson is the son my father wish he had had… and they like to rub my face in it.”

Clearly there’s a lot of love between Downey Sr. and Jr., along with a lot of pain. Both are given due illumination in “Sr.,” the sort of ode every son can only wish he could give to his father.