In His Life: The John Lennon Story

Okay, I admit it. I am a 15 year-old Beatles fan. That wasn't so hard, now was it?

As a Beatles fan, I have read almost every book worth reading, seen almost every documentary or movie worth seeing, and listened to countless interviews. In short, I just about know all there is to know about John Lennon. So when I heard about a new NBC movie based on his life, I had two simultaneous thoughts. The first one was, "Whoo-hoo!" The second was, "Gee, I wonder how badly they're going to distort John's life." It being a TV movie, I didn't expect too much.

I'm glad I got it on tape, because I think that nobody really gets every nuance of a movie the first time they see it. I recently viewed it again, and I think I can now give an better presentation of my opinions.

The movie, as far as movies can go, was very accurate. I only had problems with a few scenes: i.e., the scene with Julia at the docks, the scene where Stuart was beaten up, and the final scene. I'm not sure the first one ever happened; or if it did, the scene may well have been taken from different conversations, and then put together to make it all fit. The second scene I'm not completely sure happened, because according to various people's accounts, it occurred at Litherland Town Hall or at another place after the Beatles (or whatever their name was at the time) played a gig. And according to still others' accounts, it never happened at all. Incredibly confusing, but oh well. The final scene of the movie did in fact happen, yet probably not quite in that way.

I hope I didn't sound like *too* much of a dork just now. I have a tendency to get bogged down with detail, which has frequently been my downfall.

But back to the movie. It really was very good, in terms of historical accuracy, with relatively little dramatization. The actors were very good, too, though the guy playing John's accent was...well, strange, to say the least, and only slightly Liverpudlian. See this movie if you're into the Beatles, or even if you're not. It's a good watch.

"In His Life: The John Lennon Story" was a great movie, but it could have been a little bit better. I was really impressed with how accurate it was. I thought it was a good drama of the beginning of the Beatles.

However, the movie was supposed to be a John Lennon Story, not the story of the Beatles. All this movie was was a quick story of how Paul met John, how John grew up, la dee dah. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was absolutely wonderful that they actually showed all these important events in John's life, but they didn't outline any of his later years. I suppose the directors of this movie wanted to do something a little bit different then the 80s "John and Yoko: A Love Story."

Besides that minor detail, I LOVED this movie. I thought it was well acted out, a treat to all audiences. It was on the nose accurate! And the actors who performed in it were absolutely wonderful. It almost made me feel like I was watching the REAL Beatles.

John didn't swear at Stuart in this film like he does in Backbeat and Pete Best had an unfair portrayal when those incidents in that film probably didn't happen, in this film John beats up Bob Wooler and hits him with a shovel which didn't happen as he says so in his book and he said at the 2000 Beatle week that he is the only person who knows what really happened there at Pauls 21st birthday party which didn't appear to get mentioned in this film

Interesting to watch this US TV movie on the early life of John Lennon and compare it with Sam Taylor-Wood's recent, acclaimed "Nowhere Boy" which covers almost the same time-frame in the nascent Beatle's life. The latter is a more imaginative, if less judgemental work, but as a big Lennon fan myself, while accepting the inevitable duplication in both, I enjoyed this bio-pic too.

For one thing, the actors playing their famous counterparts did quite resemble them physically, while their acting too was largely competent. Blair Brown is probably the best known actor in the cast, as John's fusty, smothering but ultimately loving Aunt Mimi, who raises him as a child to manhood, to help her hapless but adored sister Julia, the boy's mother.

I'm fairly well versed, like most Beatlemaniacs I'm sure, in the chronology of events portrayed, including the early death of his mother, his key meetings with Stu Sutcliffe, Paul McCartney and future-wife Cynthia Powell as well as the fledgling group's struggles to get to the "toppermost of the poppermost" from it would appear the bottom of the bottomest. I didn't identify too many inconsistencies in the narrative from memory, and appreciated the depiction of the young Lennon as a temperamental, confused teenager, certainly no angel in his attitudes to women, gays and even those closest to him.

There were one or two over-obvious premonitions of future events, the group crossing Abbey Road, for example, or when John and a school-friend stumble on the gravestone of one long-deceased Eleanor Rigby (wasn't that a Paul song?) and later again, almost half-expected him to say, when sitting in the grounds of the local children's home that he wished he could stay in Strawberry Foelds, forever, but with un-flashy TV-movie direction, (although there was a lazy highlights recap at the end) convincing rendering of late 50's / early 60's Liverpool, good acting and fine musical reproduction of the group's early hits, I'd definitely award this film two out of three "yeahs".

I thought this movie was very well done. I am not a Lennon historian so I can not comment on the accuracy, but based on other comments it was pretty good. Speaking of other comments, I realize that there is no way to verify what users post here, and maybe I am REALLY out of touch, but did anyone else think the person who billed themselves as a "15 year old Beatle fan" was WAY too articulate. I am not sure why someone would pose as a 15 year old, or maybe they had someone else write the review for them, but I can not picture someone that old expressing themselves so well.

Being a huge Beatle fan rapidly approaching 50 years old, I am not questioning the fact that someone 15 can be a fan of the Beatles. Their music is timeless and I expect there will be Beatles fans for decades to come. Hopefully this person is that intelligent and can express themselves that well! I would be very happy to see that. I don't think any harm was done if there is something fishy here, but I just felt it was worth pointing out.