Oscar®-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald’s riveting documentary explores eighteen defining months in early 1970s America, through the voices, interviews and recordings of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. By 1971 the couple was newly arrived in the United States— living in a tiny apartment in Greenwich Village and watching a huge amount of American television. The film uses live concert footage, recorded business phone calls of John and Yoko, behind the scenes video and never-before-seen material, newly restored footage of John and Yoko’s only full-length concert, and a riotous mélange of American tv to conjure the era through what the two would have been seeing on the screen: the Vietnam War, The Price is Right, Nixon, Coca-Cola ads, Cronkite, The Waltons and more. As they experience a year of love and transformation in the US, John and Yoko begin to change their approach to protest — ultimately leading to the One to One concert, which was inspired by a tragic exposé they watched on tv. From Executive Producers Sean Lennon and Brad Pitt.
It’s inspiring and often amusing to watch troubled soul Lennon strive to be his best self while the culture around him freaks out. Ditto for Ono, whose charming humanity dispels endless media fantasies about her. -San Francisco Chronicle
By using TV to tell their story, “One To One: John & Yoko” retells the story of that time as well — incendiary times, inspirational artists, amazing music. -NPR
Despite the grimness of that political moment, the film maps a brief idyllic parenthesis of idealism and revitalised possibility after The Beatles split. -Financial Times
It’s the movie you didn’t think you’d want that turns out to be one of the few recent Beatles products you’ll need. -Rolling Stone
One to One is a reminder of the future we kids imagined in 1972. It’s also an act of encouragement. Lennon put it well when he told a concert audience, “OK, so flower power didn’t work. So what? We start again.” -Hollywood Reporter
NR, 101min
