Lennon Naked (2010 TV Movie) User Reviews

A moving film but not without its faults

[sixbells99 · 7/10 · 25 June 2010]

Lennon's music has now reached mythic status, yet the man has always been a contradiction veering back and forth from saint to sinner like a ship in a storm. This film shows painful yet moving aspects of Lennon's life. It's all the more agonizing to watch as you see his tainted upbringing being repeated on Julian his first son. The film deftly moves from a historic Beatles film, focusing on the break-up and the last meetings of the band, to intimate moments in Lennon's life. None of it feels forced with some beautiful direction and photography. Christopher Eccleston doesn't quite pull off playing the most iconic Beatle. During close ups the deep lines cutting across his aging face show the 46 older is painfully too old to play Lennon during his 20's and 30's and almost distracts from the film. He has gone for a caustic Lennon, sourer than sulphuric acid with a tongue as forked as a serpent. There is not one scene where we are given the glimpse of the man who wrote "All your is love". Instead we are given an endless barrage of Lennon at his worse. But you cannot help thinking how much richer the film would have been if we had seen the other side of Lennon.

Die hard Lennon fans will find much to criticise, however the scenes with his father and his Ex-Wife Cynthia more than make for these flaws.

Where was the 'lovely guy' that Paul knew ?

[kgwalker21 · 6/10 · 6 December 2010]

John Lennon comes over in this film as overbearing, callous, uncaring, rude, acerbic, immature, self obsessed, in fact its hard to see any redeeming features in the character who stars here. Whilst we (the fans) all know that John could sometimes lean towards the above we also know that he had a very funny, caring and deeply intuitive side as well, I've lost count of the number of times I've heard Paul or Ringo say 'John was a lovely guy'. Well Im sorry but the John portrayed here was anything but. Make your own mind up about how far down the road of character assassination Lennon Naked goes. As far as being factual with the events of this period of Lennon's and The Beatles a lot of the events I have read about before and assume to be fact,although I suspect it only vaguely represents the actual truth, but then, only the people present in the rooms would know for sure. Overall I didn't like it, I thought Eccleston, who although credible, was too old for the part and this distracted from the reality overall. If your at all a Lennon fan, I wouldn't recommend it, way too one dimensional in its approach of portraying John Lennon for me, although you might think I am biased being a fan, I have tried to look at it objectively though, Id be very interested to know what Cynthia thinks of it.

Shallow surface treatment of Lennon's issues

[physicsgoddess1 · 6/10 · 22 December 2010]

First if you have read Cynthia Lennon's book on John there is nothing new here. Second I was very disappointed in this movie. Maybe I was expecting too much as it was Masterpiece Theater? I was very disappointing with the lead Christopher Eccleston as John. He is too OLD (at 46 he's older than John was at his death let alone to be playing a 20 something). In the "Mother song scene" John looks the same age as his father Fred. That said, the actress who plays Cynthia did a fantastic job of showing her as a whole person and not some prop in John's early life (as she is often presented). And the actress playing Yoko was good as well. This could have offered great insight into John's problems had another actor been cast in the lead and a more rounded view of John been presented. Too Bad.

Glass is half empty biopic of iconic music superstar will hold your interest despite limited dialectic

[Turfseer · 6/10 · 22 January 2022]

As a humungous Beatles fan, I always like checking out any attempt at a drama about the Fab Four. Filmmakers who have attempted such efforts usually are hampered by not having access to the Beatles catalog and Lennon Naked is no exception. Director Edward Coulthard fortunately however was able to use music from Lennon's first solo Plastic Ono Band album as a good part of the soundtrack.

The film stars Christopher Eccleston as Lennon and as many have pointed out the actor is way too old for the part (he's anywhere between 15 and 22 years too old depending on which point in time we're looking at the legendary musician in his career).

Apart from the age difference, Eccleston does a decent enough job depicting the dark side of Lennon's life from 1964 to approximately 1972 when he left for the US with Yoko Ono. In this portrait, the glass is way more half empty than half full. What's missing of course is Lennon's charm. Yes I know he had his share of troubles (perhaps more than many people) but you do not become loved as he was without being fairly optimistic and confident.

If Lennon was afflicted by some significant angst, it was related to his troubled childhood. At the age of six, his father Freddie (Christopher Fairbank) disappeared from his life for 17 years and his mother (who had taken up living with another man) sent him to live with his Aunt Mimi. The film does a good job of exploring his resentment toward his father who in effect abandoned him for many years.

You end up feeling sorry for Freddie who is depicted as being clueless about the meaning of John's new song "Mother" which chronicles his feelings in a nutshell about his relationship with his father. Despite Freddie apologizing for not being a good parent, John can't let go of his anger. One wonders how strong that feeling was; as depicted here in this film, it was an incredibly powerful factor in leading to a great deal of John's self-destructive behavior. Yoko Ono is seen as the stabilizing influence which virtually saves him from complete ruin.

Also well done are the scenes exploring the conflict between John and his wife Cynthia (Claudie Blakely). You also feel sorry for her because she really wanted to patch things up but John had moved on from her long ago and now needed a new kind of relationship which only Yoko Ono (Naoko Mori) could provide.

Yoko here is a cipher as she is in real life. How much do we really know about the quirky artist who proved to be on the same wavelength as the man-child superstar who needed to re-experience the childhood he never had in order to gain some semblance of equilibrium?

The film is weak in the area of the relationship between John and his fellow Beatles. Both George and Ringo have hardly any lines and the conflict with McCartney is hardly explored in any detail. An early scene in which John interacts with manager Brian Epstein proves to be of some interest as John is shown gently ribbing him about his homosexuality.

Despite the age of the principal actor here as well as mainly covering only the dark side of the iconic Beatles' personality, Lennon Naked should keep your interest for its 82 minutes running time.

Contemporary tragedy beautifully done yet terribly painful to watch.

[ociopia · 9/10 · 22 November 2010]

This sort of biopic is the best example of "we bring who we are to a film." I'm surprised at the few reviews I've read as they seem to think John Lennon was an adult. I thought the film daunting because it so obviously was exploring Lennon's psychological state and it was spot on. He was a man-child who did not mature. I can think of few films I've seen where we know we are watching someone who just can't get past their childhood pain. We are shown why Lennon is hurt. His mind swirls constantly around this pain. His reaction to his pain is barely veiled fury, a rage to hurt as many others as he can and an obvious self- loathing that cut to the quick. Lennon is absolutely crippled interpersonally. He sees "them" as all the people external to his self and then there is "me," who he knows is acerbic and difficult and he is stuck in this horribly vicious cycle. It is terribly sad and disturbing because, I suppose, Lennon is iconic.

Along comes Yoko Ono and by some completely mystifying chance, he hooks up with someone who allows that injured child to come out and play and feel some freedom of expression. Does this cure him? No. Does it help him? Maybe. You do feel he is a bit happier, though still desperate. He glues himself at the hip to Yoko and never lets go.

The film does not explore his creativity at all. In this I can't say the film is just as I don't know. But I did not think Lennon original, merely clever at being reactionary to anything that touched him. He refined "acting out" to an art form and melded this with Yoko's performance art. He lived his life asleep, his unconscious in total reign and it was a vindictive and hateful shadow that ruled him.

I wonder how this man wrote "Imagine." I now think it was as much a personal plea to his inner self as it was a plea to the world.

The Muslim Comprehension of John Lennon in History

[mrdonleone · 8/10 · 2 April 2019]

Of course Lennon naked is a great movie if you love The Beatles and you love The Beatles then you will definitely enjoy this movie but in case you love The Beatles you know everything that's in the movie already and then it's nice to see it all but the thing is just that you are criticizing the movie already so the movies actually good if you don't see the know anything of The Beatles that's if you don't know anything of The Beatles thing you don't like the Beatles And if you don't like the Beatles why would you see this movie that is a bit of paradox in this movie that they don't give enough information for the ones who didn't know anything about it in the ones who did know something about it they are just a bit disappointed then it all because they have great expectations for the ultimates John Lennon movie and it wasn't really and it's portrayed John Lennon rather badly and annoying in the end we all know that John Lennon was a bit of an annoying character Betty was still a great man you know so because of all of this it is hard to like or dislike I'd like or I dislike or I'd like or dislike this movie it is really not so great this movie because it doesn't do its job properly and I have proven it is a kind of a paradox however it's a nice introduction into the life of Drumlin for the ones who don't know him but if you don't know if you don't have a reason to know him then the movie fails unfortunately yes that is it in sha Allah