THE STORY – Set in 1972 New York, this documentary explores John and Yoko’s world amid a turbulent era. Centered on the One to One charity concert for special needs children, it features unseen archives, home movies, and restored footage.
THE CAST – N/A
THE TEAM – Kevin MacDonald & Sam Rice-Edwards (Directors/Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 100 Minutes
All these years later, Beatlemania seems more prominent than ever. Just as the music of John, Paul, George, and Ringo finds its way toward another generation, Hollywood’s love affair with The Beatles only seems to be ramping up. It was recently announced that Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sam Mendes is ready to embark on a four-film experience starring some of the most popular young actors working today. There’s so much to explore within the lives of one of the most prominent bands of all time, let alone each member, that you can begin to wonder how much a studio biopic could accomplish (let alone four). Filmmakers Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’s new documentary “One to One: John & Yoko” has something to say about John Lennon in what is one of the more underappreciated periods of his life, even if it leads to a lopsided affair.
After The Beatles broke up in 1970, John Lennon, ready for the next phase of his life (and career), picked up his bags alongside his wife, Yoko Ono, and headed to Greenwich Village in 1971. Those eighteen months led to the couple becoming heavily intertwined within the progressive political movements of the 70s that so clearly bled into the art they created, which helped redefine their artistic personas. They spoke out against the war in Vietnam, the Attica Prison riot, and the arrest of political activist John Sinclair. But beyond the political ideals that motivated them, they were a young couple excited to start fresh in a brand-new city. “One to One” attempts to show Lennon and Ono, some of the most documented celebrities, in a new light that many never thought of. Instead of opting for a more commonly structured documentary filled with testimonials, Macdonald and Rice-Edwards revisit this period of Lennon and Ono’s life through the presence of their former Greenwich Village apartment. Moments of their lives are presented as if Lennon and Ono were channel surfing on their television set, modeled after one of the couple’s favorite activities. “One to One” is constantly jumping around from sequences of Lennon’s iconic charity performance intermixed with pre-recorded telephone calls, found footage, and television interviews of the couple. It’s an interesting framing device that displays originality in an overcrowded field of documentaries about musical legends that already feel so stale.
Unfortunately, this framing device also causes the film to come off as disjointed due to the editing style that leaves audiences disconnected. “One to One” is a documentary where aspects of the lives of Lennon and Ono are more intriguing to explore than the whole. One moment, viewers are watching one of many performances of the couple, only for it to jump to multiple sequences of phone calls where Ono is asking about flies for an exhibit she’s trying to create. While it may sound comical, it gets old by the third call. When we do get glimpses of Lennon’s One to One concert, it’s otherworldly. The show, which remains one of the few performances Lennon did after splitting from The Beatles, is brought to life through restored footage that is nothing but spellbinding. The couple’s son, Sean Ono Lennon, oversaw the sound mixing of the concert sequences, which helps bring a level of immersion to the film that is lacking throughout the majority of it. The concert sequences are so good that they show the potential of the film, which could’ve been more of a full-fledged concert documentary in the vein of Questlove’s “Summer of Soul.“ Instead, it’s another documentary wanting to be more than a surface-level examination of a relationship that does a solid job at what it strives for.
Despite the qualms with “One to One,“ it is refreshing to see Ono, who has been historically lambasted by many (mainly the British media) as the source of the dissolution of one of the most beloved bands of all time, finally being displayed with a modicum of respect. For so long, the preconceived opinion of Ono is shattered by how people closest to her viewed her and, most importantly, the director’s commitment to displaying that. We see why this couple fell for each other and why their personalities are so deeply respected. Seeing Ono and Lennon’s often-scrutinized relationship in a more intimate light does lead to some moving moments in a documentary that cannot elicit any emotion from its viewers whenever it’s away from the stage. It’s not that “One to One: John & Yoko“ is a terrible documentary in any way, but compared to what Macdonald and Rice-Edwards have previously worked on, this pales in comparison.
