The Linda McCartney Story (2000 TV Movie) User Reviews

Should be titled the Paul and Linda McCartney Story

[suessis · 7/10 · 21 May 2000]

Gary Bakewell is really trading in on his resemblance to Paul McCartney being as this is the second time that he has played the man. He also does a credible job at it.

The title of this movie is a little deceiving as it doesn't really tell the story of Linda, but more about her marriage to Paul. There is only one mention in this movie of her famous vegitarianism and no mention at all of her animal rights advocacy. It is a shame as these are some the things that defined Linda as a separate entity from Paul.

The love story between them is, as always, inspiring and Elizabeth Mitchell does a good job as Linda. While the flow of the story is a bit disjointed, there are some funny moments in the script as well as some revelations about her pre-Paul life (sexual encounters with Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger) that are interesting none the less. If you want the real Linda story though, you may have to get it from one of the bios written about her but not this movie.

A very enjoyable watch, but comical at points

[lizzylane-85151 · 6/10 · 31 May 2018]

Gee, for a tele-movie this really deserves a bit more credit. Linda was an incredible person and this movie represents her character quite well. Though, as some have pointed out, it's unfortunate that the actress playing Linda has the physical looks more of Heather Mills, she actually does a wonderful job of portraying Linda's gentle yet headstrong, resilient and mother-earth ways. Gary Bakewell makes a wonderful Paul in both this and Backbeat, very convincing.

Overall I was super enthralled by the way this flowed and was left in tears at the end.

I would say the casting for John Lennon was absolutely horrendous though. Almost every scene which features John and the other Beatles is actually laughable... John throwing a rock through the McCartney front door and yelling "McCartney! Who the hell do you think you are" is actually among my favourite comedic moments of all time. But it doesn't ruin it for me, because the portrayal is actually so bad that it's unoffensive and hilarious. (btw if you're after a much better portrayal of John check out Phillip McQuillan Phoenix in In His Life: The John Lennon Story).

Interesting and touching. Story of courage and devotion.

[michaelRokeefe · 7/10 · 21 May 2000]

This is the story of Linda Eastman McCartney. Her early life as a music magazine photographer. Her meeting and 30-year marriage to Beatle Paul McCartney. Her becoming a member of her husband's band, Wings; her publishing cookbooks as well as books of her photos. Linda's rich and famous, but simple life ends with her losing battle with breast cancer.

It is odd that most of the music is non Beatle/McCartney fare. The story is not too candy coated: and there is just enough spice to keep the story rolling.

Elizabeth Mitchell plays Linda. Paul McCartney is aptly played by Gary Bakewell. Tim Piper portrays John Lennon. Chris Cound is cast as George Harrison. Ringo Starr is played by Michael McMurty. Veteran actor George Segal stars as Linda's father, Lee Eastman.

Not as bad as I expected, but sadly lacking.

[thatgirl333 · 10 October 2004]

When this movie was first broadcast, I refused to watch it. I assumed it would be insulting to the memory of Linda. I assumed they would have a lot of long, personal conversations between the two leads, that no one could really know about, except the two of them, themselves. If it were written by Paul, then I could believe it, but as it was not, I did not want to get upset by a lot of baseless fabrications.

So, four years later, (last night), it appeared on the Lifetime channel, and as I was unable to sleep, I decided to watch it.

It was not as bad as I thought, but I was disappointed that it told nothing of all of Linda's accomplishments, on her own. I thought the lead actors did a good enough job, weighted down as they were, by the material.

The obligatory scene where Linda gets upset by the bad press after she appears with Wings seemed included just to prove that it was not HER idea to force herself on stage. I was at their first concert at the Cow Palace, in 1976, and even though I was one of those girls who mourned his marriage, I couldn't help being caught up by their obvious love for each other. The local press was merciless, and I began to really feel for her, then.

She was a great mother but they barely touched on that. Her photography was excellent, but again, it was not given much more attention than as a way to accomplish her apparent goal of sleeping with rock stars. So what if she was a groupie? It was a short period in her life, and certainly not the most interesting part of her life story. Her photo of Paul in "Rock and Other Four Letter Words", is one of a kind. I believe she said she took it as she told him she was pregnant. Hilarious! That would have been a good scene in the movie.

They should have shown how they raised their kids to be good, decent people.

There is a momentary look at a car taking them to school, but that scene is actually focused on John's death, and the McCartney kids are just decoration.

What happened to their quote, "We don't eat anything that has a face"?

When the movie ended, I was sad for her, because of what I already know about her, not because of anything in the movie.

Superficial biopic

[neil-476 · 6/10 · 17 November 2013]

New Yorker Linda Eastman marries Beatle Paul McCartney, goes through nearly 30 years of marriage during which stuff happens, then dies.

Mrs McCartney's life story is bashed through at a rate of knots in superficial detail, with lots of America and Americans pretending to be England and Brits, all very glamorous and mildly lookie-likey, not terribly well acted, strange choices as to what to concentrate on and what to ignore, and probably not that bad if you are interested enough to watch and you don't actually know anything about Paul and Linda McCartney.

I do, and found it unconvincing.

Very Nice and Very Touching

[Scoval71 · 7/10 · 19 December 2006]

Touching. Very nice. A story about both Paul and Linda---their courtship, family and marriage. Not only her story, but what would be her story without his. I never realized what a romance, a love, a bond these two people had. They had a glorious, romantic, and privileged life. They suited each other and you really see, I mean, if this movie is based on facts, the deep person she was. Not a glamor type, a real person, in love with her husband and family. Very sad at the end, very sad indeed. The acting by all was superior and I recommend this movie. The story is realistic, the acting, the dialog, the direction, the photography, all are well done. See it.

Not very interesting

[rebschucks · 4/10 · 26 March 2008]

Well, Gary Bakewell looks a lot like Paul McCartney.

Other than that...

This movie lacks substance. The film is set up as a series of flashbacks while Linda is coping with breast cancer in the 1990s, so the ultimate doom of Linda kind of puts a downer on the whole movie. But the biggest problem is that it rushes up to the parts where Paul is courting Linda, then loses it's steam pretty quickly once Paul and Linda get married and the Beatles break up. The years spent as a photographer, with Wings, as an animal rights activist, even her time spent as a mother are barely skimmed over, so we the audience, are left feeling kind of gypped of at least 25 years worth of valuable information. Granted, a happy and stable marriage does not make much juicy filler for a movie, but we really don't get much of a feel for who this woman was, but rather who she was for Paul McCartney.

That said, I thought the actors did a decent job, considering the lack of material; there was a nice chemistry between Bakewell and Elizabeth Mitchell. And if you did know anything about the real Linda McCartney, watching her portrayed in her final days was touching. A nice film to have on in the background while you're busy doing other things. But as a film in it's own right, it's just not strong enough material to hold much interest.

A true love story

[movieHIT88 · 7/10 · 22 July 2013]

Perhaps a better title would have been Paul and Linda McCartney - A True Love Story, as I feel this TV movie set out to show the deep love Paul and Linda felt for each other and really not much else, they would have understandably needed a mini series to cover more about her and the busy life they both lived with his career re both The Beatles and Wings and her photographic career, alternative interests and what being the parents of 4 children, whom they seemed to put a lot of their efforts into, entails. Paul said that Linda was the kindest person he had ever met and I think the script got that right. Their love story moved me and on that basis I thought the TV movie was well done.

Potted Beatle bio

[JohnSeal · 3/10 · 31 August 2006]

SEE! Mick Jagger portrayed by a Canadian actor whose accent moves from London to Ontario in a single sentence! SEE! Linda McCartney and Jim Morrison have a tasteful sex scene that looks like it belongs in a Skinemax 'erotic thriller'! SEE! A bunch of 're-staged' Linda snapshots of The Beatles (or a less than amazing simulation)! SEE! Why Gary Bakewell's Paul in Backbeat was reduced to a secondary character! SEE! Paul propound on the dangers of breast cancer and come up with a song title at the same time! SEE! Yoko take the blame! SEE! John be a complete and utter ass! SEE! Paul collapse into alcoholism (though we never see him inhale any wacky tobakky)! DON'T HEAR! The dreaded Hey Jude soundboard tape! TRY! To forget you ever watched this dreadful biopic!

Just not very good

[alicespiral · 2/10 · 3 May 2009]

Any of today's generation not knowing anything about Linda McCartney other than a name on a veggieburger packet in the supermarket would not understand this horribly jumbled story.One minute Linda is seen on stage the next in chimotherapy. This movie just shows what a truly great film McCartney made in Give my regards to Broad Street. Key players during this period were missed altogether-Denny Laine for instance.Yet what had Bill Wyman to do with anything? The music heard was pointless-what had the Association song NEVER MY LOVE to do with anything Beatles or McCartney. No mention of animal rights anywhere-which is what Linda McCartney was all about and the Wings years were summed up in a "blink and you miss it". No mention of Give my regards to Broad Street in which Linda had a starring role. It was really forcing a quart into a pint pot and is really unessential. What next? Yhe Heather Mills Story? The Yoko Ono Story? The mind boggles

Much better than average TV-movie.

[Hermit C-2 · 8/10 · 22 May 2000]

To me, most TV-movies seem like they are made by the same production company, with all the elements shoved into a big blender and the results poured into various standard molds. They may look a little different, but the taste is usually bland and generic. Over the past couple of years, several TV flicks with a rock & roll theme have been especially disappointing. Happily, 'The Linda McCartney Story' is not one of them.

This movie about a well-known contemporary love story manages to be effective and moving without being overly sentimental and cloying. Elizabeth Mitchell does a decent job in the title role. She's not a double for the real Linda, but that's OK, and she's always believable. Gary Bakewell, on the other hand, does look a lot like Paul McCartney (he played him in the excellent movie 'Backbeat') and he does a thoroughly convincing job. Most of the real-life characters portrayed here resemble their counterparts, but the thrust of the movie is on the story rather than slavishly recreating the look of any particular time period.

The movie wisely concentrates on the couple's relationship and doesn't spend a lot of time trying to duplicate the music of the Beatles and Wings. Its greatest success may be its pacing, as it is able to crowd thirty years of story into a little over and hour and a half, giving attention to most of the important events in Paul and Linda's lives without making the film fell too rushed. All in all this is a good movie for fans of the McCartneys and one that more casual observers might be interested in.

One other note: Allen Klein, the Beatles' ex-business manager, must still cast a mighty fearsome shadow. He's never depicted on camera in this film and is referred to as "Bruce Grossman."

Shameful

[nycsbe · 2/10 · 11 October 2004]

Was that it? Linda McCartney was one of the best advocates for animal rights and vegetarianism for years, the film barely mentioned her cooking skills and cookery books devoted to vegetarianism. She was so high profile in the UK for just this reason [she just so happened to be married to a Beatle]. The film concentrated more on the bickerings between the Beatles than on the supposedly title subject. She was so much more than Paul's wife. Incidentally I am a Brit living in the US and the portrayal of people and life in the 60s/70s over there truly sucked. One good point - I do concur that the casting of Bakewell as Paul McCartney was good - he was a credible lookalike, otherwise the film was utter rubbish - it take it Sir Paul hasn't seen it.

Linda McCartney Story?

[applescruffy · 13 September 2003]

I didn't like this movie. First of all, I don't know what everyone likes about Elizabeth Mitchell. She annoyed me and she looks like an American TV film actress, not like Linda McCartney. Linda had a certain class about her that Mitchell doesn't have, she's just an over-acting actress while Linda was a personality. Second of all, I really disliked the way John and Yoko are being portrayed in this movie. They were people, a couple, just like Paul and Linda, not devils. And than there's this... Why is it called the Linda McCartney Story, when according to the movie, after she meets Paul, it's not her story at all anymore? Like people have said before, everything Linda did for animal rights and her veggie actions and all that, gets mentioned once. Once! In one sentence! Now excuse me, but that seems to me to be a huge part of the Linda McCartney story. After Linda meets Paul, it's his story that seems to matter the most in this movie. Like when he gets arrested in Japan. When they get back, Paul says to Linda "I know it was harder on you". And we, as viewers, should know that as well, since it's Linda's story. But we don't! We see more of Paul as he's in prison, we only get one brief shot of Linda and the kids in the hotel. I thought this was a badly told story that doesn't do any of the people involved just. I hope Paul never had to see it.

This is one of the worst films of all time.

[Jox · 2/10 · 16 November 2003]

The entire Linda McCartney Story is a complete shambles; it is historically inaccurate, the script is poor, it is superficial in the extreme and the attention to detail is dire. There is very much more to Linda McCartney than two short periods of her life with Paul – what happened to the ‘Wings' era? As others have said, the film totally ignores the most important things in her life, namely vegetarianism and animal rights. Linda was instrumental in bringing about a change in the way supermarkets treated vegetarians and she got them to stock suitable goods for the first time. This was a major achievement. Her battle with cancer was another important episode in her life that this film barely touches on.

The production values are on a par with ‘Attack of the Killer Tomatoes' but not nearly as funny. The accents are terrible in the main characters, and the relationships between the characters are simplified (and over dramatised) way beyond the reality. I could go on, but it would serve no useful purpose.

There were two reasons why I voted ‘2' for this film; one is the excellent Morgan car that Paul drove, and the other is that it was filmed on colour stock – I like colour! Finally, will someone tell Armand Mastroianni that the roads in the UK have white lines in the middle, not yellow! That just about sums up the quality of this work, I reckon.

Don't bother with this one, Beatles fans...or anyone else

[Castor-11 · 1/10 · 22 May 2000]

Excellent t.v. biographies of the Beatles abound...this one's out of bounds. This one starts out as a sexploitation movie and goes downhill from there. It portrays Linda as a sleep-around slut on the rock scene, who, allegedly. jumps into the sack, first thing with Paul - whether or not that's so, it's none of our business. The original Paul, himself, has far more charisma than the guy who plays him in this movie. The original Paul would never have deigned to appear in a piece of work like this, indeed, if he sees it, he'll probably squirm in embarrassment and fury, as did I at the depiction of this couple - and I'm not a Beatles fan. Elizabeth Mitchell's not bad, nor is the music, but if you really want to know about the Beatles, wait til one of the many fine documentaries on them appear on your t.v. screens.

All in all, this sucked pretty hard.

[FiendishDramaturgy · 2/10 · 21 April 2007]

This was so well made, to be so horrible. I'm conflicted over this M4TV fare. About as conflicted as the movie was with itself. It was the content with which I had the problem. This is one convoluted one-sided mess of a biopic. I cannot agree with this version of the "truth," nor did I find it entertaining.

In this telling, John was a brutal antagonist, Paul was a drunkard who was weak without his woman, and George and Ringo were meaningless to the group. Yoko and Paul jointly take the blame for John's decision to leave the Beatles, and Linda was a faithless Goddess.

This is about the most disgusting display I've seen in a long time, and was in no way entertaining, endearing, or amusing. All in all, this sucked pretty hard.

It rates a 2/10 on the M4TV scale from...

the Fiend :.

Excellent bio on Linda's life, Elizabeth Mitchell is brilliant!

[Zinone · 10/10 · 22 December 2001]

This was such a great movie, I am left speechless. Elizabeth Mitchell and Gary Bakewell (once again portraying Paul with sheer brilliance) make this a movie not to miss! The love these two people shared is so brilliantly displayed by these two leads as is the conflict in the later years of the Fab Four. You do NOT want to miss this one!

Nope

[charliecarter-92118 · 1/10 · 27 August 2018]

It's a tie...which is worse, the acting or the wigs?

Selling Linda Short

[junebugg61966 · 2 February 2005]

I won't comment about the overall production values of this movie (other than to commend the acting jobs of all of the players), but as a documentary it really fails, and sells Linda McCartney very short. It could have been titled "The Mrs. Paul McCartney Story", or better yet, "The Mrs. Beatle Story".

Linda McCartney was a lifelong photographer of some repute, yet none of her photographs are shown or talked about. We get to see the break-up of the Beatles up-close, yet the details of Linda's life before and outside of her marriage to Paul McCartney are almost entirely omitted.

Unbelievably, Linda's work for animal issues and vegetarianism are barely mentioned. These activities are what defined Linda McCartney (or, at least, how she defined herself), yet more time is devoted to reproducing Beatles recording sessions than to dealing with them. Linda stated during her lifetime that motherhood was her most important job, but we see virtually none of her relationships with her four children.

This movie was a real disappointment. Less a tribute than an insult to the innovative and influential Linda McCartney.

a bit light weight

[Seamus-25 · 5/10 · 6 August 2003]

I know this is a tv movie but this seemed to cover so little ground in Lynda McCartney's life. The movie is split into 2 halves, early life and meeting/marrying Paul and the last few years and the fight against cancer. The movie switched between the two periods intermittently, I believe the only reason this was done was to avoid having to document the middle 20 years (post marriage - pre cancer). The portrayal of McCartney in his early time with Lynda (i.e. during the last years of the Beatles) grated on me a bit as the portrayal of John Lennon (although he is no saint) was universally negative and I don't think this was the case (and was not necessary for the telling of the Lynda McCartney story. The latter half, portraying the cancer battle was reasonably done adding a little depth to a fairly light weight movie. Hardly any mention was made of the Wings years or Lynda's battles for Animal Rights and Vegetarianism - surely a large part of her life (covered in about 5 mins total in the film) - more time talking about vegitarianism and animal rights was covered in the Simpsons episode they both guest voiced in.

The acting was ok from the 2 leads, especially the Lynda McCartney character herself. The other actors did their job and nothing more.

An opportunity wasted I feel.

5 / 10

Decent made-for-TV biographical movie

[bellino-angelo2014 · 8/10 · 8 February 2021]

I am not very fond of biographical made-for-TV movies. But once in a while some surprises me. And I wanted to watch this movie from a very long time as I knew about Linda McCartney since I like some of the Beatles' songs.

The movie is about Linda McCartney, who in the 1960s and 1970s was a professional photographer who used to photograph lots of famous singers of the time. One day casually in 1967, in an English music club she meets the man of her life Paul McCartney. Then the story is told in flashbacks from when they married to her death in 1998. And in the meanwhile she met lots of famous artists and musicians.

The acting is good (despite the only famous cast member is George Segal as Lee Eastman). I also appreaciated that the movie wasn't too harsh when it portrayed Linda's last months of life. It focused on them in a peaceful way and I liked it this way. Not an exceptional biographical movie but still very good. And you don't have necessarily to be a Beatles fan for liking it.

Elizabeth Mitchell plays Linda McCartney beautifully!

[dlih3g · 8/10 · 27 June 2005]

I just saw the movie for the second time yesterday and I liked it even more than I did the first time. I don't know that much about the real Linda McCartney although I am a Beatles fan but that didn't make the story any less beautiful. The movie covers over 30 years of her life with Paul from how they met in the 60's to her struggle with cancer in the 90's. The story itself is beautiful. The simple fact (or at least presented as a fact in the movie) that they never spent one night apart except for the short period of time that Paul spent in jail makes it an incredible lovestory. The movie does have some major flaws including the whole character of Paul McCartney but Elizabeth Mitchell does such a beautiful job as Linda McCartney that she saves the whole movie and definitely makes it worth watching.

The Linda (Who is She?) McCartney: Nothing You Did Not Already Know Story

[trekkiebear21 · 22 May 2000]

You already know Linda McCartney's story don't you? Well, of course you do. Did you want to watch this movie to learn the whole story? Sorry, no such luck! This meandering rambling, shallow, no warmth, no depth 'story' will not tell you anything you did not already hear in the media over the years. Her activism? Her vegetarianism? None of that seemed to be in this story, tho' it was mentioned in the advertising trailers, which, by the way, were not in the movie. This 'story' jumped back & forth, back & forth from decade to decade to decade: o, am I getting dizzy! The way that you could tell you were in a different decade was the fact the Linda & Paul went from long hair to short hair back to long hair & back again. O, there seemed to be some information bubbles that were in the tiniest font possible which stayed so long on the screen that if you blinked it is gone! The producers ALL seem to ASSUME that everyone can see 20/20 just like they do (NOT!) Why do these people assume that the 70 million member strong Babyboomers who have now all become 40 years old & up, who now all have to wear corrective lenses, if they did not before like the rest of us, can read this slightly momentarily brief second on the screen information bubbles in the worst contrast between colors to be able to read the information that also hopped from corner to corner to corner? The most love & depth of this movie is the 'nude love scene' (which added nothing to the story, except turns you off)with the Jim Morrison character, whom you knew she did not love in the 1st place. The story had no plot, nowhere to go. You already know that Linda had died a couple of years ago. The 'plot' was so 'well-developed' that you could not tell that Linda & Paul had more than 2 children, since that is all they showed until the very last scene when the family was @ the graveside. If you really, really want to know the whole love story, you have to wait until Paul writes the book, if he will. Well, so much for the 'hollywood' version!

See it...

[Bruce-40 · 22 May 2000]

Excellent. Better than I expected. Both a heart-warming and heart-wrenching look into Paul and Linda's lives together. Performances by both principals were nothing less than superb. See it soon and often, certainly in conjunction with The Birth of the Beatles, Backbeat, John and Yoko-A Love Story, and Two of Us.

Not bad......Kinda touching actually

[jwladytiger2 · 17 February 2008]

OK I can see how someone could say this story is a bit cheesy, there is a little too good quality to Linda in this story. But if you were to lose your better half and make a movie in their honor how cheesy might it be? However there was some definite honesty here and there were issues that were addressed that actually surprised me, like the whole japan deal Paul and Linda had. As a wife and a mother though I will admit I cried. I cant Imagine how my brude would carry on without me and I don't want to. From Pauls perspective I can't imagine what it's like to lose the mate you have spent so much of your life with. Over all I was pleased with it. I even have plans to watch it again. Of course keep in mind I am also a hopelessly endless Beatles fan, together and separate.