In 'One to One: John & Yoko,' a couple against the world comes into focus

The situation of the Beatles’ greatness is that it’s truthful universally assumed — and truthful relentlessly chronicled — that thing much request beryllium said astir the subject. Even erstwhile a reasonably large caller enactment comes out, similar Peter Jackson’s revelatory 2021 documentary “The Beatles: Get Back,” a definite grade of taste fatigue instantly undercuts the excitement of never-before-seen footage. With the Fab Four’s fable permanently woven into the cloth of society, what caller terrain is near to explore? (Not that this would ever halt Hollywood: A quartet of Beatles biopics is owed successful 2028.)

Kevin Macdonald has directed respective documentaries astir philharmonic icons, including Bob Marley and Whitney Houston. But with “One to One: John & Yoko,” helium doesn’t simply instrumentality an intriguing micro-view of his subjects, focusing connected 18 important months successful the lives of John Lennon and Yoko Ono — helium ignores the Beatles’ agelong shadiness to look astatine Lennon independently of the radical that made him famous. Aiming for an immersive immediacy, the Oscar-winning documentarian of “One Day successful September” tries to sidestep nostalgia, thrusting america backmost into the aboriginal 1970s aft the band’s breakup, arsenic Lennon and Ono spread up successful a tiny Greenwich Village apartment, their creativity, governmental activism and romanticist narration successful afloat bloom. It’s a compelling, occasionally uneven effort to bring the Beatles backmost down to Earth by illustrating the humanness of 1 of its members and the woman helium adored.

Structured astir the lone full-length performance Lennon performed aft the Beatles’ dissolution, the documentary peaks with sequences from that payment show, called One to One, which took spot Aug. 30, 1972, astatine Madison Square Garden. But Macdonald is aft much than conscionable a performance film, letting those philharmonic interludes service arsenic counterpoint to a larger probe into Lennon and Ono’s mindset astatine a infinitesimal of heavy part wrong American society. Specifically, “One to One” imagines however the copious magnitude of tv the mates absorbed informed their presumption of the country, the documentary often metaphorically flipping channels betwixt commercials, crippled shows and quality reports connected the Vietnam War and Watergate. Presented successful Imax, “One to One” overwhelms with this cascade of information, amusement and consumerism, suggesting that Lennon and Ono’s euphony and advocacy grew retired of that ocular maelstrom.

To thrust location the project’s intimacy, Macdonald cautiously re-creates the couple’s New York apartment, the camera gliding crossed the abstraction arsenic we perceive archival telephone conversations. Blessedly, “One to One” ne'er includes Lennon and Ono lookalikes, which makes the bare flat consciousness simultaneously lived-in and ghostly. The attack speaks to Macdonald’s wide strategy, which eschews modern talking heads oregon overmuch successful the mode of onscreen discourse for the film’s play footage. The movie trusts you cognize who segregationist George Wallace was, conscionable arsenic you’ll beryllium capable to admit the joyousness of seeing an unidentified Stevie Wonder connected signifier with Lennon. Macdonald doesn’t privation america to beryllium awed by past unfolding. Rather, helium embeds america successful the warm, casual messiness of the couple’s home life, underlined astir amusingly by a seemingly superfluous subplot involving Ono researching however to get unrecorded flies for her latest creation installation.

“One to One” spends nary clip rehashing Lennon’s nonrecreational highlights from that epoch — however his spare, epochal 1970 solo grounds “Plastic Ono Band” paved the mode for the follow-up medium “Imagine” astir 9 months later. Instead, Macdonald provides clips of Lennon and Ono connected speech shows discussing their matrimony oregon disparaging his erstwhile Beatles bandmates for not lasting up for Ono erstwhile the property denigrated her. The couple’s day-to-day concerns gully america in, Lennon’s fearfulness of being deported arsenic monumental arsenic Ono’s custody conflict for her girl Kyoko from a erstwhile marriage. (Ono’s struggles inspired her 1969 opus “Don’t Worry Kyoko,” which she delivers with blinding strength during the One to One show.)

But the worrying authorities of U.S. authorities is ne'er acold from their mind. Teaming up with counterculture rabble-rouser Jerry Rubin, Lennon and Ono talk of bid and emotion with a naïveté that is some poignant and inspiring. Much volition beryllium made of the documentary’s modern relevance — Nixon’s reactionary right-wing America feels similar an opening enactment for the cruel federation we present inhabit — but there’s a bruised defiance to Lennon’s noting that, portion the 1960s’ imagination of Flower Power whitethorn person failed, a caller question could ever outpouring up successful its wake. Lennon’s outrage astatine the injustices helium saw connected TV fueled protestation songs similar “Attica State” and “John Sinclair,” aboriginal collected connected the medium “Some Time successful New York City,” which dropped 2 months earlier the Madison Square Garden concert. Sadly, his humanism and euphony weren’t capable to halt America’s creeping conservatism, but by positioning Lennon’s passionateness arsenic potently present-day, “One to One” argues that the songwriter’s connection remains vital, adjacent though its messenger is gone.

If faint whiffs of boomer sentimentality are inescapable, “One to One” astatine slightest supplies america with barnburner unrecorded versions of “Come Together” and “Instant Karma!” that mightiness marque you wonderment wherefore the originals aren’t this fiery. That said, the movie sometimes succumbs to the tireder tropes of the music-doc genre. Longtime Macdonald collaborator Sam Rice-Edwards, the movie’s exertion and co-director, unimaginatively juxtaposes performance performances with quality footage. (Shots of Nixon acceptable against Lennon ripping done a screen of “Hound Dog” archer viewers thing astir either.) And portion the conception that Lennon and Ono came to recognize America done its tv programming is provocative, excessively often the collage of grim quality and glib ads leans toward the tritely ironic.

The much Macdonald resists mythologizing oregon summing up, the much John Lennon and Yoko Ono look arsenic fragile, analyzable individuals connected a travel unneurotic during uncertain times. “One to One” isn’t a salute to the Beatles’ brilliance oregon Lennon’s genius. Despite the ample screens this movie volition play on, the movie renders its subjects arsenic touchingly life-sized.