“I Am Chris Farley” opens with Lorne Michaels calling its subject “infuriatingly talented.” Over an hour later, we’re still hearing someone say, “He had ‘it’.” This is not so much a documentary as a love letter. It is for fans, by fans in every way. Everything Farley did, from his childhood to his time at Second City to “Saturday Night Live” and “Tommy Boy” is captured as landmark sea changes in the world of comedy. Colleagues and fans including Adam Sandler, David Spade, Mike Myers, Dan Akyroyd, Bo Derek, Bob Saget, Christina Applegate and more participate in what feels like a memorial tribute more than anything else.

The first half-hour of “I Am Chris Farley” proves to be the most interesting, as it allows friends and family from Farley’s youth to remember what formed this talent. He was a middle child, always looking for mommy’s attention and competing with his brothers. He was religious, shy, and overly kind. From an early age, he struggled with weight and self-esteem issues, but he had natural ability on stage that really came out in college. Believe it or not, rugby changed Farley’s life, as playing the sport gave him the support of teammates and the center of attention at parties. Farley’s antics in college were legendary, but it was when he discovered improv comedy that everything changed.

Farley went to Chicago with his friends, and contacted the legendary Del Close for lessons in comedy. It wasn’t long before he ended up on the main stage of the comedy venue that has produced dozens of household names. As presented here, Farley’s time at Second City was a force of nature. As the great Bob Odenkirk (who’s so eloquent here one wishes he would do a whole doc about the art of comedy) says, everyone who worked at Second City would stop what they were doing when Farley would do Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker, a character he would turn into one of the most memorable in the history of “SNL.”

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