One To One: John & Yoko Dir: Kevin MacDonald & Sam Rice-Edward (13th Floor NZIFF Review)

Think you know everything about Beatle John? Even if you do, One To One: John & Yoko is a film that will stand as a stark reminder of just how passionate and important his and Yoko’s activism was in the early 1970s.

This is a very different Lennon than the one we see in Peter Jackson’s Get Back film. Actually, in terms of film-making, One To One is more like this year’s Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary in that it takes place in a specific time in the artists’ career and tells that story with the help of restored live footage.

But John & Yoko’s story and work was much more than just a quartet of Englishmen plundering old blues songs.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Becoming Led Zeppelin for what it was, but this film works on many more levels.

The film finds John & Yoko holed up in a tiny flat in Greenwich Village in 1971, the couple having moved to the US, in part to regain custody of Yoko’s daughter, Kyoko, who had been taken by the child’s father and was hiding out somewhere in the US.

Apparently John loved American television, and so the film’s directors use vintage TV ad and programme clips to help set the scene, mixing shows like The Waltons and The Mary Tyler Moore Show with ads from Ragu spaghetti sauce and the like.

When the channel surfing comes upon the news, things get serious.

The Vietnam War was in full force, women were fighting for their rights, and prisoners were rebelling at Attica State.

But John and Yoko were no couch potatoes.

They were moved to make a difference.

As a former Beatle, Lennon was very aware of the power he had…remember the Bed-Ins For Peace in Amsterdam and Montreal in 1969?

So, after watching Geraldo Rivera’s harrowing account of the way intellectually disabled children were being treated at nearby Willowbrook State School on Staten Island, he and Yoko did more than just wring their hands and say, “tut tut”.

They reacted by putting together a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden, ultimately raising over $1.5 million for children with special needs.

This was the first and, sadly, last full-length post-Beatles concert Lennon performed and it looks and sounds fantastic. The audio mastering has been overseen by Sean Ono Lennon, so this is a Lennon family-sanctioned film.

Songs like Cold Turkey, Instant Karma and Come Together are as powerful as ever, with backing by the Elephant’s Memory Band, while John’s versions of Imagine and Mother will stay with you long after the film’s 100 minutes.

But this is a film that manages to be more than a restored concert.

The directors have done an impressive job of weaving in just about all of the actions and causes the Lennons were involved in during the 18 months they spent in that apartment before moving to the Dakota.

We get a glimpse of Allen Ginsberg, Jerry Rubin, Angela Davis and we overhear phone conversations with manager Allen Klein and A.J. Weberman…Weberman was famous for rummaging through Bob Dylan’s garbage. John & Yoko were trying to get Dylan on board for their “Free The People” tour and in the process were on the phone to Weberman, pleading with him to leave Bob alone so he felt safe to hit the road.

And while the Free The People tour never happened, in retrospect John & Yoko’s efforts were successful in other ways.

By 1975, the war was over, Nixon resigned and a new wave of optimism seemed to be taking over the land.

Personally, I was 16 years old in 1972 and remember listening to their album, Some Time In New York City with some trepidation, but now over fifty years later I realize that I can still hear songs like Sisters, O Sisters, Attica State, The Luck Of The Irish, We’re All Water and the notorious album opener, Woman Is The N***er Of The World…which was, incredibly, the first single from the album…in my head. They helped change my young mind.

John Lennon understood the power of his celebrity and while he, like all of us, was not perfect, by the time he had moved with Yoko to NYC, he was a passionate, caring and very active patriot of the human race. And this film reminds us that John Lennon and Yoko Ono did their best to make the world a better place, converting the optimism of the ’60s into the activism of the ’70s.

I suggest you see One To One: John & Yoko at your earliest convenience.

Marty Duda

One To One: John & Yoko will be featured at this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival with the first screening on August 2nd at Auckland’s Civic Theatre.  Click here for tickets and showtimes

https://www.nziff.co.nz/2025/tamaki-makaurau-auckland/one-to-one-john-yoko/