With the 50th anniversary of the Beatles forming and the 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death, there’ been plenty of Fab Four news coverage and media for sale this year. Lennon Naked is the BBC’s made-for-tv movie contribution, and it fits that most cynical of sub-genres: the cash-in-on-an-important-moment movie. Rather than a fresh, innovative take on John Lennon’s psychology, as the title promises, it tries to show his whole life as a response to daddy issues. However, it does feature John Lennon (or rather, Christopher Eccleston) butt naked. A couple of times.
The film is a dramatization of Lennon’s life, but it seems that the moments they chose were pulled from a hat. The film starts with him finally seeing his estranged dad (Christopher Fairbank) in 1964, after 17 years, and nonsensically insulting him like some erstwhile Bob Dylan. We immediately know where this film is going, but we still have 75 minutes to watch. And indeed, the last significant scene has post-Beatles-all-white-suit Lennon yelling at his father “What about me?” over and over again. So, I’m sure your wondering, how do we go from Hip Beat Catharsis of 1964 to Primal Scream Catharsis of 1970?
Bouncing arbitrarily forward in history like a drunk with a time machine, of course. We see a couple press conferences, a fair amount of Lennon walking around alone, the dissolution of his first marriage, meeting Yoko, the band breaking up, and a couple other scenes. I admire the film for trying to show some of the less famous episodes from Lennon’s life, but many of the scenes seem downright pointless, not just to historical Lennon but also the character on the screen.
It doesn’t help that the talented Eccleston, though he nails the voice, gets none of the charm that made John Lennon, well, John Lennon. The script portrays John as a cold-hearted self-obsessed bastard, and his rejection of his own son, Julien, borders on comically sadistic (at one point, John literally kicks a soccer ball away from Julien in disgust rather than play pass). While there’s plenty in the historical record to indicate this is accurate, Eccleston’s portrayal has no nuance, no joy, no humor, no intelligence. Yeah, John was an asshole, but that he was also among the most fascinating, charming and weird people in cultural history.
Instead of getting any of that, we get a lazy Freudian deconstruction: he has flashbacks to being a child at the beach with a seagull flying by in grainy super-8 style footage. Seriously? We also get the standard Lady Macbeth reading of Yoko (Naoki Mori). Yawn. They fed each other’s egos, yes. But what else? All the characterizations in this film are incredibly flat and one-sided, which would be fine if it was, say, Hard Day’s Night. But it’s trying melodramatic psychological bio-pic, and as such is all about characterization, and as such it just stinks.
Which is a shame, because four or five times in the movie it all gels together, and you get a crystallized moment of clarity about John Lennon: just after Yoko has her second miscarriage, an argument between him and Paul (Andrew Scott); in these moments you see how the childish, megalomaniacal side of John helped create the Beatles, his public image. But unfortunately, the film only portrays his childish, megalomaniacal side. It’s no surprise his Primal Scream therapy is the climax of this film: just like the debunked, new-age pseudo-psychology of Primal Scream, this film flattens Lennon’s experience and art into the insecure reactions of a man-child who never got over daddy leaving.
Bonus Features
None, appropriately.
"Lennon Naked" is on sale November 30, 2010 and is not rated. Biopic. Directed by Edmund Coulthard. Written by Robert Jones. Starring Christopher Eccleston, Naoki Mori, Andrew Scott.
