A film that takes on The Beatles is always going to fail in one respect or another. They were too big for Hamburg. They were too big for Liverpool. And they were too big for the hand of even the most gifted of scriptwriters. Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it’s also too slippery a creature to handle with any success, and even though this stroll through the early years of the Beatles is a thorough delight in it’s attention to period detail, to an atmosphere, to a style and to the sheer brutal eroticism of the music – the writing struggles to retain a true focus. If K:PAX director Iain Softley wanted to plot a course through a single and poignant love-story – it fails hands down. Sheryl Lee’s performance is just too remote, too aloof for an audience unfamiliar with the historical character to engage with in any way, and though this a testament to biographical correctness, it doesn’t make for good drama. The bizarre love triangle between John Lennon, Stuart Sutcliffe and Astrid Kirchherr works better but the script often fails to present the tragedy meaningfully. Whilst Lennon’s love for Sutcliffe is illustrated in all its beautiful and visceral complexity, Sutcliffe and Kirchhner struggle to find a spark.
At worst it’s an excellent biopic, at best a series of profoundly well realised scenes and set pieces. Aside from this, the stunning performance given by a guttural Ian Hart as the acerbic, angry Lennon literally steals the movie; it’s like Lennon, but it’s not Lennon and Hart’s character must rank as one of the most original and personalized historical portrayals on film today. The mannerisms are Lennon’s, but the soul is Hart’s own.
If I was to level just one criticism at Backbeat the movie, it’s that it tries to be too many things to too many different people.
The people who matter most though are unlikely to care about all that; most folks wanted to see a film about the Beatles, to get an inkling of what it was like prior to the suits and the petty wranglings about song-writing credits. You wanted the dirt, the sweat, the sleaze. You wanted kick-ass rock n’ roll and the sex that naturally went alongside it. Well with Backbeat, you got all this and more. You also got one of the classiest and grungiest tribute bands the music world has ever seen: Dave Grohl, Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum and Mike Mills of REM.
Although Universal released the DVD in 2003, the film returns to our living rooms with a ‘collector’s edition’. The main changes are a mindblowing Dolby 5.1 audio and an audio interview with Astrid Kirchherr. There’s also anamorphic widescreen images (1.85:1). Other extras, included first on the old DVD, include a director’s commentary, a pair of deleted scenes, some interviews and a couple of priceless casting sessions. And for those who can be arsed, an essay by the director.
It may not have achieved what it set out to achieve, but it’s a big loud and stylish bundle of fun all the same; poignant as well as prodigious.