Everyone knows that John Lennon and Yoko Ono wanted a revolution. Now, in the new documentary, One to One: John and Yoko, we see how they tried to start one.
Taking us back to the 1970s, One to One returns us to the personal lives of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in New York’s Greenwich Village. Set around Lennon and Ono’s only full-length concert, the film speaks to their passion for justice at a time when the world felt entirely uncertain.
In One to One, directors Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards gives new insight to one of music history’s greatest power couples. Each snippet and audio recording offer insight into the mind and motivations of John and Yoko as they attempt to navigate life in the post-Beatles era. By inviting us to step inside their lives, we hear them wrestling with everything from personal friendships to issues of discrimination. (We’re even allowed to hear Ono’s true feelings about the rumours that she ‘broke up the Beatles’.) In essence, these are simply two people who are trying to move beyond the legacy of the past and chart a new future.
“The Beatles don’t exist anymore, do they?” Lennon quips.
As such, the concert footage that we are treated to is strangely freeing. Even in moments when Lennon cranks out a Beatles classic, one gets the sense that this is him at his most pure. He tells us that he ‘wants to be himself’ now and we bear witness to the raw talent that he brought to the stage. With crisp audio and clear visuals, every tune that he plays feels like an anthem worth exploring more deeply. (In fact, it’s worth noting that the music for the film was remastered by Lennon and Ono’s son, Sean.) As a result, the footage is stunning and perfect for the IMAX screen.
Even so, Macdonald and Rice-Edwards wants this piece to be more than a concert film. Instead, One to One feels like a conversation between musical icons and history itself. Through their use of newsreels and pop culture clippings, One to One connects the dots between Lennon and Ono and the revolutionary battles taking place in the real world around them. This was a time of global change. Vietnam was on the forefront of the American psyche. Rights for women and the Black community were moving forward. And President Nixon was the divisive figurehead.
At this time, Lennon and Ono knew that change needed to be taking place and were committed to seeing it through. Although the complexity of their relationship with the controversial Jerry Reuben is fully on display here, the two never waivered in their desire to see hearts and minds be changed. By adding fundraising elements to their tours and publicly speaking out on behalf of injustice, the two believed that the greatest challenge to the American people was whether or not they were willing to examine their own lives. (“It’s easier to say ‘revolution’ than it is to look inside yourselves”, Lennon points out.)
After all, life is fully of distractions. It’s easier to put it on someone else.
Interestingly, Macdonald and Rice-Edwards tap into this sense of apathy by bringing the world of television to life. With each segment of news pieces, the duo edits them to feel like we’re changing channels. Sometimes, it’s easier to watch The Price is Right or commercials for laundry detergent than it is to spend time thinking about the world’s problems. In One to One, Macdonald and Rice-Edwards understand our penchant to ignore social issues but refuse to allow us to do so.
Lennon and Ono couldn’t. Why should we?
Therein lies the challenge that Macdonald and Rice-Edwards embed within One to One: John & Yoko. Whether he’s onstage or conducting interviews in bed with Ono, Lennon was the very definition of a ‘disrupter’ for his age. Even so, the man who proclaimed that ‘you say you want a revolution’ still had to wonder what it’s going to take to see one happen.
One to One: John and Yoko is available in IMAX on Friday, April 11th, 2025 and in theatres on April 18th, 2025.
