Movie Review: ‘STEVE! (martin)’ looks at past, present in a lovely, intimate 2

Steve Martin has never been one to follow any sort of playbook. It is fitting the first official documentary about his life is similarly unconventional: A freewheeling story told in two parts, one part focused on “Then” and one part focused on “Now” (kind of) with both parts debuting on Apple TV+ on Friday. Both documentarian and subject are trying, the best they can, to make sense of whatever “Steve Martin” is.

Directed by self-proclaimed superfan Morgan Neville (the Oscar-winner who has told the story of Fred Rogers and Anthony Bourdain), “STEVE! (martin)” never commits to one form. Like its subject, it allows itself to be a little looser, utilizing every technique available to help paint a truer picture of Martin, a man so enigmatic that his close friends don’t even seem to have a handle on him. He’d hardly be the first performer to save it all for the stage: Martin says that it was somewhat comforting to be able to put on a persona during shows. He was also able to continually reinvent himself. Who else could have walked away from stand-up just as they’d reached rock star status?