Review: 'One to One' captures John Lennon and Yoko Ono in concert, and working out in public how to use their fame for positive change

Director Kevin MacDonald’s documentary “One to One: John & Yoko” pinpoints a crucial passage in the shared lives of John Lennon and Yoko Ono — a time when the ex-Beatle was feeling his way through the applications of his fame, and relying on his wife and artistic collaborator as his north star.

It’s 1971, and Lennon and Ono have just moved from London to a tiny two-bedroom apartment in New York’s Greenwich Village. The apartment — which MacDonald has re-created for illustrative purposes — is dominated by a large bed with a TV set at the end. Lennon and Ono would spend good parts of the day in this bed, watching TV and gathering an understanding of both the news and the culture of the United States.

Lennon is looking for an outlet for his social-justice beliefs, with quiet guidance from Ono. With the war in Vietnam raging, they look toward the anti-war movement, and for a time connect with such notable of the time as the Yippie leader Jerry Rubin, Beat poet Allen Ginsburg and activist musician David Peel. There’s talk of a tour, combining music and political activism, and possibly enlisting Bob Dylan — but that falls apart when Lennon and Ono become disillusioned by Rubin’s violent radicalism.

The couple gets involved in the campaign to free activist John Sinclair, facing a 10-year prison sentence for possessing two joints. Lennon tags along with Ono to a feminist conference — and we hear Ono talk candidly about how the pressure from Beatles fans and vitriol from the press were so damaging to her mental health that she developed a stutter.

Finally, it’s Geraldo Rivera, of all people, who brought an issue to Lennon and Ono that they felt they could do something about. The couple was watching TV in bed, and saw Rivera do an exposé about the horrible living conditions at Willowbrook, a school for children with intellectual disabilities on Staten Island. Lennon and Ono decided the way they could help was to put on a concert to raise money for the school.

The concert, called “One to One” because it aimed to raise money for one-to-one teaching for each child there, was the only full-length concert Lennon performed between leaving The Beatles and his murder in 1980. It’s a hell of a show, and MacDonald uses the footage generously, showing performances of such songs as “Instant Karma,” “Give Peace a Chance” and “Come Together.”

Sometimes the songs play as backdrop for other footage. The most poignant example comes when MacDonald shows footage from a day trip organized for the Willowbrook kids in Central Park, a chance for them to enjoy the sunshine and the grass, to feel love and connection with the volunteer teachers chaperoning them. Accompanying these scenes is “Imagine,” and the pairing blows the cobwebs off that overused song, reminding us of the power and hope Lennon and Ono infused in it.

There’s ample footage of Lennon and Ono speaking for themselves. They appeared on a lot of talk shows, including an infamous week as guest co-hosts of “The Mike Douglas Show,” exposing afternoon homemakers to the likes of Rubin and the Black Panthers. There’s also audio of Lennon on the phone with various people; Lennon started recording his phone calls, he said because he suspected the FBI was bugging his phone so he’d like his own copy of what they were hearing. 

The TV at the end of the bed becomes a framing device, as MacDonald uses a steady barrage of video images — Tupperware commercials, “Sonny & Cher” clips, news footage of Richard Nixon’s re-election campaign, and so on — to fill us in on the historical timeline and capture the mood of the day. 

“One to One: John & Yoko” may not deliver new information to many fans. For the casual follower of the lives of Lennon and Ono, a couple things stand out. One is an appreciation for Ono, both for her talent — her vocals were punk rock, years before that was a thing — and for her resilience against the haters. The other is watching how Lennon and Ono, two of the most famous people on the planet in 1972, were developing their shared political consciousness in front of the cameras of the world, with stumbling steps and open hearts.

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‘One to One: John & Yoko’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, April 11, at Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy), Megaplex Legacy Crossing (Centerville) and Megaplex Geneva (Vineyard). Rated R for graphic nudity, some violent content, drug use and language. Running time: 101 minutes.