The Linda McCartney Story

I didn't like this movie. First of all, I don't know what everyone likes about Elizabeth Mitchell. She annoyed me and she looks like an American TV film actress, not like Linda McCartney. Linda had a certain class about her that Mitchell doesn't have, she's just an over-acting actress while Linda was a personality. Second of all, I really disliked the way John and Yoko are being portrayed in this movie. They were people, a couple, just like Paul and Linda, not devils. And than there's this... Why is it called the Linda McCartney Story, when according to the movie, after she meets Paul, it's not her story at all anymore? Like people have said before, everything Linda did for animal rights and her veggie actions and all that, gets mentioned once. Once! In one sentence! Now excuse me, but that seems to me to be a huge part of the Linda McCartney story. After Linda meets Paul, it's his story that seems to matter the most in this movie. Like when he gets arrested in Japan. When they get back, Paul says to Linda "I know it was harder on you". And we, as viewers, should know that as well, since it's Linda's story. But we don't! We see more of Paul as he's in prison, we only get one brief shot of Linda and the kids in the hotel. I thought this was a badly told story that doesn't do any of the people involved just. I hope Paul never had to see it.

Gary Bakewell is really trading in on his resemblance to Paul McCartney being as this is the second time that he has played the man. He also does a credible job at it.

The title of this movie is a little deceiving as it doesn't really tell the story of Linda, but more about her marriage to Paul. There is only one mention in this movie of her famous vegitarianism and no mention at all of her animal rights advocacy. It is a shame as these are some the things that defined Linda as a separate entity from Paul.

The love story between them is, as always, inspiring and Elizabeth Mitchell does a good job as Linda. While the flow of the story is a bit disjointed, there are some funny moments in the script as well as some revelations about her pre-Paul life (sexual encounters with Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger) that are interesting none the less. If you want the real Linda story though, you may have to get it from one of the bios written about her but not this movie.

You already know Linda McCartney's story don't you? Well, of course you do. Did you want to watch this movie to learn the whole story? Sorry, no such luck! This meandering rambling, shallow, no warmth, no depth 'story' will not tell you anything you did not already hear in the media over the years. Her activism? Her vegetarianism? None of that seemed to be in this story, tho' it was mentioned in the advertising trailers, which, by the way, were not in the movie. This 'story' jumped back & forth, back & forth from decade to decade to decade: o, am I getting dizzy! The way that you could tell you were in a different decade was the fact the Linda & Paul went from long hair to short hair back to long hair & back again. O, there seemed to be some information bubbles that were in the tiniest font possible which stayed so long on the screen that if you blinked it is gone! The producers ALL seem to ASSUME that everyone can see 20/20 just like they do (NOT!) Why do these people assume that the 70 million member strong Babyboomers who have now all become 40 years old & up, who now all have to wear corrective lenses, if they did not before like the rest of us, can read this slightly momentarily brief second on the screen information bubbles in the worst contrast between colors to be able to read the information that also hopped from corner to corner to corner? The most love & depth of this movie is the 'nude love scene' (which added nothing to the story, except turns you off)with the Jim Morrison character, whom you knew she did not love in the 1st place. The story had no plot, nowhere to go. You already know that Linda had died a couple of years ago. The 'plot' was so 'well-developed' that you could not tell that Linda & Paul had more than 2 children, since that is all they showed until the very last scene when the family was @ the graveside. If you really, really want to know the whole love story, you have to wait until Paul writes the book, if he will. Well, so much for the 'hollywood' version!

Well, Gary Bakewell looks a lot like Paul McCartney.

Other than that...

This movie lacks substance. The film is set up as a series of flashbacks while Linda is coping with breast cancer in the 1990s, so the ultimate doom of Linda kind of puts a downer on the whole movie. But the biggest problem is that it rushes up to the parts where Paul is courting Linda, then loses it's steam pretty quickly once Paul and Linda get married and the Beatles break up. The years spent as a photographer, with Wings, as an animal rights activist, even her time spent as a mother are barely skimmed over, so we the audience, are left feeling kind of gypped of at least 25 years worth of valuable information. Granted, a happy and stable marriage does not make much juicy filler for a movie, but we really don't get much of a feel for who this woman was, but rather who she was for Paul McCartney.

That said, I thought the actors did a decent job, considering the lack of material; there was a nice chemistry between Bakewell and Elizabeth Mitchell. And if you did know anything about the real Linda McCartney, watching her portrayed in her final days was touching. A nice film to have on in the background while you're busy doing other things. But as a film in it's own right, it's just not strong enough material to hold much interest.

When this movie was first broadcast, I refused to watch it. I assumed it would be insulting to the memory of Linda. I assumed they would have a lot of long, personal conversations between the two leads, that no one could really know about, except the two of them, themselves. If it were written by Paul, then I could believe it, but as it was not, I did not want to get upset by a lot of baseless fabrications.

So, four years later, (last night), it appeared on the Lifetime channel, and as I was unable to sleep, I decided to watch it.

It was not as bad as I thought, but I was disappointed that it told nothing of all of Linda's accomplishments, on her own. I thought the lead actors did a good enough job, weighted down as they were, by the material.

The obligatory scene where Linda gets upset by the bad press after she appears with Wings seemed included just to prove that it was not HER idea to force herself on stage. I was at their first concert at the Cow Palace, in 1976, and even though I was one of those girls who mourned his marriage, I couldn't help being caught up by their obvious love for each other. The local press was merciless, and I began to really feel for her, then.

She was a great mother but they barely touched on that. Her photography was excellent, but again, it was not given much more attention than as a way to accomplish her apparent goal of sleeping with rock stars. So what if she was a groupie? It was a short period in her life, and certainly not the most interesting part of her life story. Her photo of Paul in "Rock and Other Four Letter Words", is one of a kind. I believe she said she took it as she told him she was pregnant. Hilarious! That would have been a good scene in the movie.

They should have shown how they raised their kids to be good, decent people.

There is a momentary look at a car taking them to school, but that scene is actually focused on John's death, and the McCartney kids are just decoration.

What happened to their quote, "We don't eat anything that has a face"?

When the movie ended, I was sad for her, because of what I already know about her, not because of anything in the movie.