Copyright Variety
A war no one really knows how to stop is raging, causing protests on college campuses and at the White House. People with disabilities are neglected by underfunded and ill-equipped resources. Activists are arrested on trumped-up charges. A Black woman runs for president. A politician is shot in front of supporters. And in the early 1970s, two of the most famous musicians in the world learned about a lot of it from a TV in their cozy, two-bedroom love nest in New York City’s West Village. Documentarian Kevin Macdonald thought he’d just be making a movie about John Lennon’s 1972 benefit concert for kids with intellectual disabilities, called One to One. Then the late Beatle’s estate found some audio recordings made during the time when he and his wife, Yoko Ono, became concerned that their phone had been tapped. Suddenly, Macdonald had an inside look not just at this relationship but at how the couple reacted to news and information about what was happening in the world. “One to One: John & Yoko” premieres Nov. 14 on HBO after a theatrical release and festival run. Its appeal isn’t just the access to two of the most-covered individuals of the 20th century, Macdonald says. Rather, it’s a sociological and historical time capsule. “The film is about John and Yoko and the concert, but it’s as much about the times and about immersing you in a different [era] and trying to evoke a period in a way that’s different from what I’ve done before in documentaries,” says Macdonald, whose unscripted credits include a 2018 documentary about musician Whitney Houston and a 2023 film about fashion designer John Galliano. It’s not hard to see the parallels to the present day. “You look at what’s going on on TV at this time and in America [now] and the conversations about race, the conversations about feminism, it’s the same damn things,” Macdonald says. Because of his access to the private footage, and lots of material from Lennon’s frequent appearances on TV talk shows, where he was very candid, Macdonald says he made a rule that he would include archival material from this era; no talking heads or added context. Viewers can look up John Sinclair, the poet Lennon helped free from drug charges, in the same moments that they can marvel at how Macdonald and his wife, set decorator Tatiana Macdonald, meticulously re-created Lennon and Ono’s apartment, down to the Peanuts pillowcase. It also shows that celebrities becoming “woke” to causes is not a 21st century phenomenon. Lennon, who grew up in a fractured home with little connection to global politics, is sympathetic when the Irish Liberation Army gets in touch and wants to plan concert tours that will raise bail money for their members. Ono, whose upbringing was much more cultured, has more trepidations about agreeing to appear at every protest and support every cause. “A lot of people have things that they don’t like about John Lennon, but I think that what I admire about him is that he’s somebody who’s open to change and trying to change himself and trying to improve his life,” Macdonald says. The film also gives some vindication to Ono. In one of the found recordings, she speaks about being forever blamed for breaking up the Beatles. Viewers also see her speak frankly at a feminist conference about married life in the spotlight and hear her inner torture over the abduction of a child from a previous relationship. “To me, the core theme of [the film] is about childhood and about the pain left over from childhood when you’re an adult,” Macdonald says. Perhaps in part because this footage is archival, Lennon’s estate didn’t protest much of what’s included (Ono and Lennon’s son, Sean Lennon, is an exec producer). Although Sean Lennon did dispute an ending where the Greenwich flat is demolished. He suggested a more upbeat conclusion: his baby videos. He’s right; cute baby videos never go out of style.
