A Hard Day’s Night, Movie Review

Manny Lincoln

Overall, I expected more from the film in the way of plot, character development, or more in-depth insight into each of the Beatles personalities and music.  I was disappointed and bored by the movie.  It was not at all what I expected.  This was a very traditional movie designed to sell the Beatles like a product promotion.   It was not cutting edge or progressive.

There did not seem to be any plot in the story.   It was definitely not a documentary. The film seemed to be made only to promote their music and sell concert tickets.  The whole story was based around a day in the life of the Beatles. However, none of it made sense. In between their songs was slapstick humor, insults of everyone and everything, nonsensical random scenes, and shots of the Beatles posing to look good. I lost interest quickly because there was not story to follow.  There was a loose plot of finding and keeping Paul McCartney’s Grandfather entertained and out of trouble.  Even this was uninteresting because it was stereotypical jokes about old people. The poor guy was made to look like an idiot unable to take care of himself.   It was all very predictably leading back to just another one of the Beatles songs.

There was no character development. The Beatles did not share any insights into themselves or their music.  The Beatles were made to look like the only intelligent people who were bored with everything happening around them.    All the other characters were stereotypes.  Old people were made to look unintelligent, slow, out of style and unable to understand young people.  All the “Pretty” girls were made to look unintelligent self-centered and only interested in their looks and the Beatles.  All the “Unpretty” and older women were made fun of and insulted. All of the men who worked for the Beatles were made fun of as unintelligent and “uncool”. It was like a 13-year-old wrote the script.

At times the cinematography was interesting.  They had some aerial shots, some interesting low angles, cut up jerky motion shots, sight gages and some abstract visual element.  Many of the scenes included interesting high contrast designs.  To me, the visual tricks were the only interesting part of the movie.

The 1960’s clothing styles were interesting on the Beatles.  However, once again, no one else was allowed to wear interesting clothing except the Beatles.  All the older and unattractive people seem to be wearing 1950’s styles.  All the young women were highly sexualized style clothing.

I was very disappointed in not being entertained, not learning more about the individual Beatles and not understanding more about their music.  The Beatles were supposed to be revolutionary in their lives and music. This movie did not show anything progressive or revolutionary about them.  I just did not get the purpose of the movie.  It seemed to be made just to promote their music.