As someone who grew up with the Beatles (let's be honest, we ALL did), I was interested to see what a feature film about them would be like. After sitting through it, my opinion is a little mixed. It's a cinematic fashion statement, created to showcase these four lads from Liverpool in all their glory. Therefore, it's rather jarring to see characters like Wilfrid Brambell (the nightmarishly wide-eyed "Grandpa") and Victor Spinetti (the embarrassingly overzealous TV Director) taking up such a large percentage of screen time. It gets to the point where you wonder, "Is this a film about John, Paul, George and Ringo, or Wilfrid, Victor, Lionel and Norman?" This was not helped by the film's clumsy script that somehow bafflingly earned itself an Oscar nomination. There are some genuinely funny moments but overall, the film unapologetically plays for laughs, with John making quips at a potted plant or confirming to a stuffy passerby (Anna Quayle) that he really is John Lennon for what must have been five minutes but what felt like five hours.
However, I must say that I found it an unequivocally sad watch. This was back when they were just starting out- young lads, young friends who just wanted to have fun, get drunk and chase women. This was before the drugs, before the breakups and before the bust ups. This was at a time when their lives were virtually painless and when the entire world was their musical oyster. History has not been kind to The Beatles or its members but their music still endures and that's a fact that this film unintentionally confirms.
A Hard Day's Night will probably go down in history as a right of passage for all true Beatles fans. It's amateurish, embarrassing and (at the points involving Brambell) woefully ill-conceived but charming, enlightening and poignant at the same time.
However, I must say that I found it an unequivocally sad watch. This was back when they were just starting out- young lads, young friends who just wanted to have fun, get drunk and chase women. This was before the drugs, before the breakups and before the bust ups. This was at a time when their lives were virtually painless and when the entire world was their musical oyster. History has not been kind to The Beatles or its members but their music still endures and that's a fact that this film unintentionally confirms.
A Hard Day's Night will probably go down in history as a right of passage for all true Beatles fans. It's amateurish, embarrassing and (at the points involving Brambell) woefully ill-conceived but charming, enlightening and poignant at the same time.