Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2011

Intimate if slightly gauzy and hardly revelatory PBS doc on the decade John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent in the Big Apple. It first dutifully chronicles the Lennons’ fight against deportation because of their theatrical political activism, which some charge was slyly orchestrated by the radical Left. But this well-made film goes on to offer much more: Lennon’s separation from Yoko and his self-destructive exile in El Lay (his “lost weekend”), his later house husbanding, and, most importantly, insights into his musical inspirations. Note: There’s plenty to gag Ono-phobes, but she makes some good points.