Almost anyone who grew up with the Beatles knows a few basic things about their manager, Brian Epstein, the subject of the new biopic “Midas Man.” You may know that he was running a popular record store in Liverpool when he first saw The Beatles perform at the Cavern Club and realized it was his destiny to manage them. You almost certainly know that it was Epstein who created the image of the Beatles, taking four working-class rockers in black leather jackets, dressing them in collarless gray suits and giving them the legendary haircuts – a look that set off a thousand screams. Or the wise way he steered the Beatles’ international career, landing the deal for them to appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Or the fact that Epstein was gay, which he hid well.
If you’ve ever watched footage of Brian Epstein, you also know the most resonant and fascinating thing about him: that he was a straight British man with a steady gaze and quiet charm. Who spoke in a silky Polish aristocratic voice (the product of years of private study). He was as conservative in his businessman behavior as the Beatles were rebellious and brash.
If you know even some of this, you’ll go into “Midas Man” wanting to see the mythological tales filled with it (which director Joe Stevenson and screenwriters Brigitte Grant and Jonathan Wickham have turned into a fairly routine TV movie). fashion). Naturally, you want to see who Brian Epstein really is – the man at the bottom of the photo, which the film presents in tabloid detail. However, there is something somewhat routine in TV movies about that as well. Even the most superficial, made-for-TV biopics of the 1980s were always about the “dark side,” since that was supposedly where the drama was.
In Midas Man, we get glimpses into Epstein’s gay secret life in Liverpool (where he picks up men in the middle of the night at isolated cruise spots, and at one point clashes with a thief who threatens to blackmail him). We see how a growing awareness of his secret side makes uncomfortable his traditional Jewish parents, the adoring Queenie (Emily Watson) and the deeply resentful Harry (Eddie Marsan). Later, when the Beatles become famous and Epstein moves to London, we see Brian’s liberal but problematic relationship with a down-and-out American actor named Tex (Ed Speleers), and his increasing reliance on self-medication: the glass of whiskey he always carries in his hand, and his spiraling cocktail of amphetamines. And barbiturates (so he can go home…and then sleep). But even though all of this is true, just offering these things seems completely ordinary.
The film’s star, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, is an engaging actor (best known for his work in The Queen’s Gambit) who highlights the fragility of Brian’s intelligence, and how his passion for the Beatles was a response to their magic around him. To some kind of equation – on how to raise the level of these girls in the crowded crowd at the Cavern Club to world level. He predicted everything. But I wish Fortune Lloyd would look more like Brian (he’s taller, darker, more boney), and signify more of Epstein’s velvety, almost painful politeness.
“Midas Man” had a troubled production, with a revolving door of directors and a particular problem you wouldn’t see outside of a modestly budgeted Beatles biopic. A number of the film’s investors apparently assumed it would include original Beatles songs, but in fact, the producers never acquired the rights. So the only songs we hear the Beatles perform in the film are covers (“Please, Mr. Postman,” “Money,” etc.).
Sorry, but I could have told the investors that. In what world could Apple Corps Ltd. Or Sony Music Publishing licensing the use of The Beatles’ music for small-scale independent productions? Backbeat, the brilliant 1994 Beatles biopic, faced the same hurdle but made artistic gains out of it (which it could have done because the film was only shot in Liverpool and Hamburg). But when “Midas Man” reaches the moment the Beatles became famous, you feel the absence of their music, as if the scenes have been cut off.
Finding actors to impersonate the Beatles is always an awkward endeavour, but I thought these actors did a believable job – Blake Richardson eagerly reproduces Paul’s smiles, nods and angelic stubbornness, and Jonah Leez brings out the vulnerability under John’s hostility (although it’s a very brief one -Can’t they deliver it?!
Backstage at the Cavern Club after seeing them for the first time, Brian says: “You were like that Mah-velous,” which leads to much mockery of his elegant manner. But his loyalty is genuine. When the Beatles seemingly can’t find a record company to sign them, he perseveres, and they get an audition at Parlophone, a company that specializes in comedy. There, they have to win over the house producer, George Martin, played by Charlie Palmer Rothwell, who resembles Martin so much — and wonderfully emulates his delicate brilliance and Mona Lisa’s pout — that he lifts the film up, in a weird way, that is It hurts a little. Rothwell reminds you, for a few minutes, of what a biopic looks like when it lives up to the rest of “Midas Man”… not so much (Jay Leno as Ed Sullivan? We get the concept, but he still plays like. ..huh?)
However, “Midas Man” is absolutely worth watching, and it captures something honest and poignant about Brian Epstein. His devotion to the Beatles, and his work to make them more legendary than Elvis, is so all-consuming that he seems like a man living his dream. But keeping his romantic life in the closet tortures him. He has his own relationships (and doesn’t seem to feel guilty about his sexuality), but the extreme intolerance of his society means it’s almost impossible for him to fully accept him. He is With someone. Thus, the prison in which Brian finds himself is a prison of spiritual isolation. He doesn’t have a family of his own, and he wants one desperately. The Beatles are kind of like family, and so is Cilla Black (Darci Shaw), one of his growing roster of artists. But they cannot fill this void of loneliness. So, when John, deeply shaken by the controversy over his “The Beatles are bigger than Jesus” remark, told Brian in 1966 that he wanted to stop touring, it was as if Brian had been thrown off the train of his existence. .
“Midas Man” makes us feel for Brian. However, the film is very superficial about many things. He shows us the outside of his actual home in London, but what about his hobbies? His taste in movies? Give us Something Beyond the scenes have that amazing quality. In the final part of the film, we wanted to see more of how Brian’s relationship with the Beatles developed. “Midas Man” suggests that once the group finished the tour, they almost didn’t need Brian anymore; This was not the case.
Ultimately, the film doesn’t sway enough toward the dark side. Brian Epstein died on August 27, 1967, of a drug overdose. He was 32 years old, sitting on top of the world. However, he had massive doses of upper and lower parts in his system. This was one of those overdoses that had the absolute echo of a slow unconscious descent into self-destruction. The Man of Midas did not have to settle matters by leaving this chapter of his life a mystery. Brian Epstein deserves more than just a watchable, serviceable, and in many respects, biopic. Let’s hope his behind-the-scenes genius, his civilized joy and torment, will one day get their due (perhaps in Sam Mendes’ upcoming Beatles films?).