Published Jan. 30, 2000, San Jose (CA) Mercury News
HELLO . . . GOODBYE
TWO EX-BEATLES REUNITE FOR A DAY IN FICTIONAL FILM
9 and 11 p.m. Tuesday, 8 p.m. Thursday, 10 p.m. Saturday, VH1
(star) (star) (1/2 star)
ROLL UP. Roll up for the radical history tour.
It's 1976. The four Beatles had broken up as a group and officially gone their separate ways six years earlier. Paul McCartney is being interviewed and is asked an often-repeated question about the chances of a Beatle reunion.
His answer: ''You never know.''
Then, on April 24, while in New York City, McCartney decides to drop in unannounced at the Dakota, where John Lennon and Yoko Ono live.
So begins VH1's ''Two of Us,'' a speculative day in the life of the two former Beatles. Aidan Quinn ('An Early Frost'') and Jared Harris, Richard's son (''Lost in Space'') star as McCartney and John Lennon. Quinn has the voice, not the look, while it is the opposite with Harris. It takes some serious squinting to accept either as Lennon or as McCartney.
Nevertheless, fans, curious over what revelations about Lennon and McCartney might be included, will likely find themselves drawn to the film, which is peppered with references to Beatle trivia. Maybe part of the reason is that the film's producer, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, also produced the Beatles' movie ''Let It Be'' and the Rolling Stones' ''Rock and Roll Circus,'' which featured Lennon and wife Yoko Ono. Fans may wonder how close, if at all, Lindsay-Hogg gets to showing us the real personalities of the two former Beatles.
When Lennon opens the door to his Dakota apartment and sees McCartney standing in the hallway, his first reaction, typically cryptic, is to call his former songwriting partner ''the ghost of Christmas past.''
After some initial wariness on both sides, the two, without either spouse in sight, recall old times with cautious affection, and at times, anger. (Lennon says his wife is off on a business trip with son Sean to buy some cows, while Linda McCartney is with the children. Neither is seen in the film.)
Their conversation reveals that Lennon, still hurt over his troubled youth, is content to be without a record contract. ''I've given up the game. I've finally gotten control of my own life and I'm not going to give that up.''
McCartney, however, loves working. ''I'm doing quite well without you,'' he says. ''Yeah, you and your silly love songs,'' retorts Lennon, referring to the McCartney song doing well in the charts.
Harris' Lennon is mostly caustic, portrayed as a househusband seemingly under the control of Ono, who has introduced him to a macrobiotic diet and numerology. Quinn's McCartney is surer of himself, and although defensive with his old mate, he seems to be longing for the friendship that used to be.
Although VH1 says a meeting never took place on the date the film is set, Lennon himself, in a Playboy magazine interview conducted just before he died, said Paul indeed visited him on the 24th, the date of a ''Saturday Night Live'' broadcast in which producer Lorne Michaels made the now-famous offer, not totally in jest, to pay the Beatles $3,000 if they would sing three songs.
''Oh, yeah. Paul and I were together watching that show,'' Lennon said. ''He was visiting us at our place in the Dakota. We were watching it and almost went down to the studio, just as a gag. We nearly got into a cab, but we were actually too tired.''
However, whatever else went down on that date in this movie is the product of writer Mark Stanfield's imagination. Most of what transpires is relatively believable -- with one glaring exception. During an improvisational piano session, the pair gets into a Western rhythm and end up singing, of all things, ''Tumbling Tumbleweeds.'' It's so completely out of character that one can only wonder if Lindsay-Hogg is giving viewers a bit of a revelation or completely putting them on.
A few things in the preview tape, labeled as a working version of the film, will certainly catch the attention of viewers should they make it to the final version. Those exterior shots that look like the Dakota, including,incredibly, the gate near where Lennon was killed in 1980, were actually filmed in Canada. There are several lines of adult dialogue, which were common from the oft-strong-tongued Lennon, but are unusual on basic cable.
The preview tape also featured two McCartney songs on the soundtrack -- ''Silly Love Songs'' and ''Here Today.'' A VH1 spokesman said the script was submitted to McCartney's organization, and those songs will be included only if approved by McCartney. But a spokesman for McCartney's MPL Productions says McCartney is not endorsing the program and that review copies sent to the press with the McCartney songs were not authorized, so don't look for them in the televised version. (No other Beatle music was included.)
In the end, even if ''Two of Us'' is mostly a fantasy, seeing the two old friends back together in the film should strike a sentimental chord with anyone who ever liked the Beatles.
It's like hearing ''Free As a Bird'' and ''Real Love'' for the first time again. Who cares if it's not a real reunion?
Just the thought is nice.
