First Hit: I smiled a lot while watching this film. What a wonderful way to experience Beatles Music.
I can understand some people liking this film and others not liking it. Yes, some of the events they depict in accordance with the songs aren’t necessarily accurate and maybe a bit odd, but this film isn’t about that.
I think this film is about the music, fun and loosely presenting a story about some of the events that were going on when the music was created.
This film is about relaxing into this story as guided by wonderful Beatles songs. Being a baby boomer, these are the songs I grew up with and played in high school. The interpretations of these songs with the story’s situations mostly worked.
The ways the music was presented, for the most part, was really fun, interesting, and thoughtful. Even the early “If I Fell” has a meaningfulness that shines through. Joe Cocker does three characters while singing one song and to hear is voice sing brought forth great memories and I found myself smiling.
Hearing the film’s version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was fantastic. This is also to say that there is a nice complement of George Harrison songs to go along with the Paul McCartney and John Lennon compositions.
I could go on and on about the 95% of the songs in this film that worked well. I won’t even bother to discuss the other 5% that I thought could have been done differently.
Additionally, most of the graphical and surrealistic scenes (Like “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite”) are truly fun and enjoyable.
I did notice within myself and others, in the almost full theater, that we weren’t quite sure if laughing was appropriate at the beginning. This is because the film walks the edge of seriousness and fun.
After about 20 minutes though I could feel myself and the audience relax into what was going on and let go of needing to react in a particular way. It was simply a film to sit back and relax into. Clapping at the end was spontaneous
Overall: I’d go see it again, just to hear the music and see the scenes again.