Review:
"One to One: John & Yoko"
Release Date: April 11, 2025 Rating: R Running Time: 100 minutes When John Lennon moved from London to New York City in 1971, the ex-Beatle and his wife Yoko Ono spent much of their downtime watching television in their tiny Greenwich Village apartment. “It’s a window on the world. Whatever it is, that’s that image of ourselves that we are portraying,” Lennon says in an archival recording in One to One: John & Yoko. Directors Kevin MacDonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ compelling music documentary chronicles Lennon and Ono’s experiences in and outside of New York City during the 18 months that they resided at 105 Bank Street. The intent of MacDonald—the director of Touching the Void and The Last King of Scotland—and Rice-Edwards is to dissect the political and social turmoil America endured in the early 1970s through television footage Lennon and Ono may have viewed from the comfort of a wood bed made from discarded church pews as well as news and interview clips of the controversial couple campaigning for peace, love, and justice. This is built around footage and audio recordings of Lennon and Ono performing onstage or in private settings, mostly during the “One to One” benefit concert at the Madison Square Garden in August 1972. One to One is essentially a quick history lesson—as seen through the eyes of two very distinct outsider creatives and activists—of a country grappling with racism and political unrest, the escalation of unpopular war, and a powerful president headed for a landslide reelection despite an unfolding scandal. The documentary shows how Lennon and Ono happily interjected themselves into the U.S. politics of the day, initially aligning themselves with the likes of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Allen Ginsberg before suspending their “Free the People” national tour in fear of the outbreak of violence at the 1972 Republican National Convention. The archive footage and unearthed audiovisual recordings reveal Lennon and Ono to be genuinely concerned about the social injustices they see and seek to remedy to the best of their ability. But One to One also spend as much time examining their relationship, from pressure they feel as artists to the mistreatment they received from both the public and the media for their actual and perceived roles in the breakup of The Beatles, to their fight for custody for Ono’s daughter Kyoko from her second marriage. One to One depicts Lennon and Ono as a couple united in love, politics, activism, and art, with no hint that Lennon would temporarily leave Ono for May Pang in 1973. While Ono was very much in Lennon’s shadow at the time, One to One ensures Ono stands apart from Lennon as much as she with him. Perhaps this is the influence of Sean Ono Lennon, the son of Lennon and Ono, who is credited with remastering the audio of the concert footage in One to One. He obviously has a vested interested in protecting and advancing his mother’s legacy. Regardless, Ono deserves to be portrayed an artist and activist in her own right, and it is especially haunting to hear an audio recording of her solo performance of “Looking Over from My Hotel Window,” a song partially about how her past decisions have informed or influenced her relationship with Lennon. Another equally evocative recording in One to One is a phone call between Lennon and drummer Jim Keltner. The latter asks the former is if he ever worried about his politics making him the target of violence. Hindsight is everything, so it is chilling to hear Lennon brush off any concerns about being shot. If One to One successfully depicts Ono as an artist, even to the point that there is a running joke about obtaining unusual material for an exhibit, it does very little to explore Lennon’s songwriting process. Lennon’s politically charged “Some Time in New York City” was recorded during the period time under consideration, and while One to One makes references to some of its songs (especially “John Sinclair” and “Attica State”), the documentary fails to provide much insight into how Lennon wrote and recorded the tracks on an album inspired by living in the Big Apple. Maybe this is a function of MacDonald and Rice-Edwards not having access to or finding audiovisual material of Lennon in the studio or discussing writing and recording the studios on film or tape. Which reveals a limitation of One to One: that despite the clever assemblage of archival footage, the documentary is often only as astute or edifying as the material available to or uncovered by MacDonald and Rice-Edwards. One to One’s biggest strength, though, often works against MacDonald and Rice-Edwards’ decision to make a documentary focused on Lennon and Ono’s political activism. Each specific moment in time leads into concert footage, and MacDonald and Rice-Edwards often intercut themed television footage against Lennon and/or Ono performing. The problem is, the live performances from the “One to One” concert—Lennon’s only post-Beatles full-length concert, one that benefitted the controversial Willowbrook State School for children with intellectual disabilities—are so electrifying that you sit as patiently as possible through each time-specific chapter waiting for Lennon to power his way through “New York City,” expose himself emotionally with “Mother,” and make “Hound Dog” his own. It’s not that the concert performances are far and few between in One to One, but they do leave you wanting more of Lennon making musical magic onstage. But One to One isn’t just about John Lennon the sing-songwriter. It is about what it means to be an socially conscious artist and how best to use fame and influence for the betterment of the people. To this end, One to One celebrates a controversial power couple that practiced what they preached, even if they did not always succeed in bringing peace and love to a country on fire. Posted: April 11, 2025. Web site: https://www.onetoonefilm.com/ |
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