Paul McCartney drops in on John Lennon in New York during the late 1970s. The two talk.
This film reimagines a meeting which actually happened, but in the absence of Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney, who were both there on the day in question. Jared Harris plays Lennon, and Aiden Quinn plays McCartney. Both are excellent actors, and both performances hit a place halfway between impression and interpretation, albeit the accents are a bit hit and miss at times. All this is OK.
The question, though, is does it work? We are presented with a day which could have happened. Right at the start, I tripped over the fact that it didn't happen, and never really got up. Wish fulfilment is a powerful thing. I wish The Beatles hadn't broken up, and I wish John hadn't been murdered. If I was going for a wish fulfilment story I would have gone for something a bit more consequential.
So while I discount the story, the script isn't bad and drops in lots of details which show that the writers know their stuff. Sadly, Michael Lindsay-Hogg's direction is on the pedestrian side. I wanted to enjoy this a lot more than I did.
This film reimagines a meeting which actually happened, but in the absence of Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney, who were both there on the day in question. Jared Harris plays Lennon, and Aiden Quinn plays McCartney. Both are excellent actors, and both performances hit a place halfway between impression and interpretation, albeit the accents are a bit hit and miss at times. All this is OK.
The question, though, is does it work? We are presented with a day which could have happened. Right at the start, I tripped over the fact that it didn't happen, and never really got up. Wish fulfilment is a powerful thing. I wish The Beatles hadn't broken up, and I wish John hadn't been murdered. If I was going for a wish fulfilment story I would have gone for something a bit more consequential.
So while I discount the story, the script isn't bad and drops in lots of details which show that the writers know their stuff. Sadly, Michael Lindsay-Hogg's direction is on the pedestrian side. I wanted to enjoy this a lot more than I did.