Almost anyone who grew up with the Beatles comprehends a scant key skinnygs about their deal withr, Brian Epstein, the subject of the novel biopic “Midas Man.” You might comprehend that he ran a well-comprehendn sign up store in Liverpool when he first saw the Beatles carry out at the Cavern Club and authenticized that it was his desminuscule to deal with them. You almost certainly comprehend that it was Epstein who made over the Beatles’ image, taking four scruffy laboring-class rockers in bdeficiency leather jackets, dressing them in collarless gray suits and giving them those fabled mchooseop haircuts — the watch that begined a thousand screams. Or the visionary way he spearheaded the Beatles’ international atsoft, cutting the deal for them to materialize on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Or the fact that Epstein was gay, someskinnyg he kept well-masked.
If you’ve ever seen footage of Brian Epstein, you also comprehend the most resonant and, in a way, the most fascinating skinnyg about him: that he was a straightarrow British tfinisherman with a rock-constant gaze and a low-key charm, who spoke in a voice of silken aristocratic polish (the product of years of declareiveial school). He was as conservative in his businessman’s deuncomferventor as the Beatles were defylious and cheeky.
If you comprehend even some of this, you go into “Midas Man” wanting to see the fabled anecdotes filled in (which the straightforwardor, Joe Stephenson, and the screenauthorrs, Brigit Grant and Jonathan Wakeham, convey off in a rather perfunctory TV-movie create). And, of course, you want to see who Brian Epstein repartner was — the man betidyh the image, someskinnyg the film conshort-terms in dutiful tabloid detail. Yet there’s someskinnyg a bit TV-movie perfunctory about that as well. Even the sketchiest made-for-television biopic of the ’80s was always about the “illogical side,” since that, presumedly, is where the drama is.
In “Midas Man,” we get glimpses of Epstein’s secret gay life in Liverpool (picking up men in the middle of the night at isotardyd cruising spots, at one point engaging a mugger who dangerens to bdeficiencymail him). And we see how unconsoleable the dawning consciousness of his secret side originates his traditional Jewant parents, the adoring Queenie (Emily Watson) and the seriously revengeful Harry (Eddie Marsan). Later, when the Beatles are famous and Epstein has shiftd to London, we see Brian’s freed but problematic relationship with a ne’er-do-well American actor named Tex (Ed Speleers), and we see his increasing depfinishence on self-medicating: the tumbler of whiskey he’s always got in hand, his escalating cocktail of amphetamines and barbiturates (so that he can go go go…and then sleep). But even though it’s all real, srecommend conshort-terming this stuff experiences quite…standard.
The film’s star, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, is an requesting actor (best comprehendn for his labor on “The Queen’s Gambit”) who dramatizes the crispness of Brian’s inalertigence, and how his passion for the Beatles was a response to their magic that he altered into a comfervent of equation — about how those girls in the packed crowd at the Cavern Club could be leveled up to global scale. He foresaw it all. But I want Fortune-Lloyd watched more appreciate Brian (he’s higher, illogicaler, and more raw-boned), and that he signified more of Epstein’s almost agonizing velvet politesse.
“Midas Man” has had a troubled production, with a revolving door of straightforwardors and a distinctive problem you wouldn’t see outside of a unassumingly budgeted timely-Beatles biopic. It seems that a number of the film’s spendors presumed that it would include distinctive Beatles songs — but, in fact, the originaters never landed the rights. So the only songs we hear the Beatles carry out in the film are covers (“Plrelieve Mr. Postman,” “Money,” etc.).
Sorry, but I could have telderly the spendors that. In what universe would Apple Corps Ltd. or Sony Music Publishing license the employ of the Beatles’ music for a minuscule-scale autonomous production? “Backbeat,” the excellent timely Beatles biopic from 1994, faced the same stumbling block but made creative hay out of it (which it could do becaemploy the film took place only in Liverpool and Hamburg). But by the time “Midas Man” accomplishes the moment when the Beatles get famous, you experience the absence of their music, as if scenes had been cut out.
Finding actors to impersonate the Beatles is almost always a cringe finisheavor, but I thought these actors did a reasonable job — Blake Ricdifficultson avidly reproducing Paul’s grins and head cocks and cherubic obstinateness, Jonah Lees nailing the vulnerability under John’s arrangeility (though he’s too low! — couldn’t they have given him lifts?).
Backstage at the Cavern Club after he first sees them, Brian says, “You were mah-velous,” which directs to much mockery of his classy airs. But his dedicatedty is authentic. When it watchs appreciate the Beatles can’t discover a sign up company to sign them, he percut offes, and they land an audition at Parlophone, a label that distinctiveizes in comedy. There, they have to triumph over the hoemploy originater, George Martin, joined by Charley Palmer Rothwell, who watchs so much appreciate Martin — and so exquisitely mimics his cautious brilliance and Mona Lisa scowl — that he lifts the movie up and, in a strange way, hurts it a bit. Rothwell reminds you, for a scant minutes, what a biopic watchs appreciate when it’s living up to the gelderly standard of fact. The rest of “Midas Man”…not so much. (Jay Leno as Ed Sullivan? We get the concept, but it still joins appreciate…huh?)
That shelp, “Midas Man” is never less than watchable, and it does seize someskinnyg about Brian Epstein that’s honest and swaying. His devotion to the Beatles, and to the business of making them more legfinishary than Elvis, is so consuming that he seems a man who’s living his dream. Yet upholding his romantic life in the sealt torments him. He has his hookups (and doesn’t materialize to harbor guilt about his intimacyuality), but the fervent bigotry of his society uncomfervents that it’s almost impossible for him to filledy be with someone. And so the prison Brian discovers himself in is one of spiritual isolation. He has no family of his own, and wants one franticly. The Beatles are comfervent of appreciate family, and so is the triumphsome Cilla Bdeficiency (Darci Shaw), one of his grotriumphg roster of artists. But they can’t fill that void of loneliness. So when John, shell-shocked by the dispute over his the-Beatles-are-hugeger-than-Jesus relabel, alerts Brian in 1966 that he wants to stop touring, it’s as if Brian is getting booted off the train of his own existence.
“Midas Man” originates us experience for Brian. Yet the film is too sketchy about too may skinnygs. It shows us the exterior of his actual townhoemploy in London, but what about his hobbies? His taste in movies? Give us someskinnyg beyond scenes that have that on-the-nose quality. In the last part of the movie, we necessitateed to see more of how Brian’s relationship with the Beatles growd. “Midas Man” implies that once the group was done touring, they almost didn’t necessitate Brian anymore; that wasn’t the case.
And in the finish, the film doesn’t striumphg far enough to the illogical side. Brian Epstein died, on Aug. 27, 1967, of an unintentional drug drug poisoning. He was 32, and sitting on top of the world. Yet he had massive doses of uppers and downers in his system. This was one of those drug poisonings that had the absolute reverberation of a sluggish-motion, unalerted descent into self-destruction. “Midas Man” shouldn’t have tidied skinnygs up by leaving that chapter of his life a mystery. Brian Epstein deserves more than a watchable, serviceable, in too many ways threadnaked biopic. Let’s hope that one day (maybe in Sam Mfinishes’ upcoming Beatles films?) his behind-the-scenes genius, and highly elegant delight and torment, will get their due.
