Elementary, my dear Downey.

• Author: Gehring, Wes D.
• Position: REEL WORLD - Robert Downey Jr's movies and performances

IT IS HARD NOT to be increasingly impressed with the talents of Robert Downey Jr., whom critic David Thomson winningly has described as "one of the most fascinating, mercurial actors around--if one cherishes the notion of the actor as jazz improviser: sudden, lyrical, absurd, tragic, comic, and ready to destroy himself for truth."

His father is the avant-garde filmmaker Robert Downey, whose critical breakout came with the modestly budgeted "Chafed Elbows" (1965), the same year his son was born. Fittingly, the boy's first fill appearances were in the senior Downey's work, starting with "Pound" (1970). Given the free-spirited counterculture climate into which Downey was born, including an easy accessibility to drugs (starting with his father), the twin seeds of the young man's future, art and potential substance abuse, were planted early.

Let me state early, however, that I am not the sort to be drawn to that perverse fascination with the self-destructive artist, be it poet Dylan Thomas or rocker Janis Joplin--and really, why does such interest persist? Biographers and critics alike long have enjoyed romanticizing the creative process. For instance, Val Holley's otherwise superior 1995 chronicle of James Dean finds the need to close with the most simple sentimentality: "Dean's earthy records were achieved because of--not in spite of--his self-destructiveness, insecurity, and vulnerability. The gift of artistry can be a curse as well as a blessing." This is an entertainingly romantic take on Dean, but ultimately neglects so much. This gifted young man was anything but sell-destructive or insecure, and his air of vulnerability was only part of a persona he created to match that angst-ridden youth he played in the movies and early live television. A critic pitching pain as the only catalyst for artistry is facilitating an excuse or an alibi for someone with a traditional background to cop out on creativity. Robert Downey Jr. had me on talent alone long before his temporary personal travails briefly landed him in prison on drag-related convictions.

He was mesmerizing in James Toback's underrated "Pick-Up Artist" (1987), in which his young womanizer is more than matched by Molly Ringwald's victimized daughter of a lowlife. That, though, merely is the narrative; Downey steals every scene from the top-billed Ringwald. Toback and Downey return to a similar sexual hustler scenario even more effectively in "Two Girls and a Guy" (1998). Written...