There is a new documentary called One to One: John and Yoko, which you can stream with an HBO Max subscription, that has shown me a side of Yoko Ono I never understood before. While the film is mostly about John Lennon’s legendary “One to One” benefit concert at Madison Square Garden in 1972, part of the movie covers Ono’s custody battle over her daughter with her first husband. It’s something I knew very little about, but it explains so much.
Yoko Ono’s Daughter Wasn’t In Her Life For Decades
I’ve read and watched a lot about The Beatles over the years. Like millions of others, I’m a huge fan of the band. I’ve never really bought into the conspiracy theory that Yoko Ono was responsible for the acrimonious breakup in 1970 (it was the egos of John Lennon and Paul McCartney), but I’ve also never really understood Ono’s music. It’s just weird. I love weird music, but hers just struck me as grating for the sake of grating. Her visual art was always more appealing to me, however, and I’ve always understood the political nature of it.
After watching One to One: John and Yoko, I still don’t love Ono’s music like I love Beatles songs, but I finally feel like I know where it comes from. Much of it comes from the pain she felt as a mother whose daughter was removed from her life by her ex-husband in a custody battle that turned into an absence that lasted decades. That trauma is really felt in Ono’s music, and this documentary really shows that. It gave me a fresh perspective on her art and on Ono herself, and I’m grateful for it.
One To One: John And Yoko Is Good, But Not Great
The movie itself, one of many I’ve watched about Lennon and The Beatles over the years, isn’t my favorite music documentary, if I’m honest. It’s a little disjointed, and following the narrative can be challenging. The style of the documentary, which is cobbled together with a combination of contemporary newsclips, concert footage from the benefit show, and phone calls that Lennon and Ono recorded at the time, means there isn’t a linear story. It’s basically about their life in New York City in 1972 and anchored around the benefit concert, one of the very few post-Beatles concerts Lennon performed.
It was a busy year for Lennon and Ono, and that is reflected in the film. It touches on their political battles, their battle with the U.S. government over Lennon’s threat of deportation, and, most importantly, the “One to One” concert, which was a benefit for the Willowbrook institution, which was a state home for children with intellectual disabilities. The scenes with the kids are touching and heartwrenching, and the concert footage is incredible. The rest feels like filler. It’s stuff we’ve seen in other documentaries, like 2006’s The U.S. vs. John Lennon, which is a better film about the deportation fight. This should have been a concert film.
The film should have narrowed its focus to the concert and to Willowbrook. It’s in that story that I gained this new perspective on Ono and her pain over losing her daughter. The political stuff is just superfluous. She didn’t reconnect with her daughter until the 1990s, and her love for the kids at Willowbrook is reflected in her missing her daughter.
Up next for Fab Four fans is Sam Mendes much-anticipated Beatles biopics, coming in 2027.