One to One: John & Yoko 2024

Escaping the backlash from The Beatles’ dramatic breakup, John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono relocated to New York in 1971. They moved into a tiny Greenwich Village apartment with a massive TV propped at the end of their bed. Lennon exclaims that TV was his “window to the world” and filmmaker Kevin Macdonald picks up this cue, transporting us back to the early 70s by channel surfing through a dazzling array of archival material, home movies and audio recordings. From the Vietnam war to The Price Is Right, from Coca-Cola to the Attica prison riot. The result is an absorbing portrait of what was a very turbulent era of radical change and counter-culture.  

We get to see John and Yoko’s interactions with anti-war protestors Josh Rubin and A.J. Weberman, and their advocacy for imprisoned White Panther Party founder John Sinclair. Political ructions such as Shirley Chisholm announcing her candidacy as the first black female presidential candidate, the attempted assassination of segregationist George Wallace and the early bubbling’s of the Watergate scandal draw us into a time of great upheaval. 

But Macdonald also focuses on more domestic matters such as Yoko’s custody battle over her first child Kyoko, while in a more amusing running joke we get to hear several exasperated assistants trying to find flies for one of Yoko’s performance pieces.  

Interspersed throughout the film is beautifully restored footage from John and Yoko’s 1972 One to One benefit concert at Madison Square Garden. It was the only full length concert John Lennon ever performed after leaving The Beatles and it’s a joy to experience barnstorming renditions of such flower power classics as ‘Come Together’ and ‘Instant Karma’. At a time when the world feels like it’s going erupt at any moment Lennon’s message of giving peace a chance is more urgent than ever. — Michael McDonnell