Give My Regards to Broad Street

In this odd and very bad movie, we see Paul McCartney as he goes about an average day of appointments, all the time trying to find the missing and irreplaceable master tapes for his next album. We see him rehearse and perform some Beatles and Wings songs with Ringo on drums and wife Linda doing whatever it was she did. His search for the tapes includes many dream sequences and even a pointless and embarrassing visit with his deceased father in the person of the late Sir Ralph Richardson.

The movie is a confusing and dreary mishmash of reality, drama, and music videos created by screenwriter and star McCartney. Sadly it is depressing and boring, completely devoid of life and energy. The most that can be said about Paul's 'performance' is that he had the good taste to look totally disinterested the whole time; despite the threatened take-over of his company if the tapes cannot be found, he maintains a glum pokerface as does the rest of the cast. I didn't care about the plot because he didn't seem to care. This must have been his attempt to make a cinema vérité film similar to "A Hard Day's Life," but there is not a moment of humor or even pleasant camaraderie with his coworkers; he wanders from place to place like a sleepy zombie. Wife Linda is seen but never mentioned nor does she speak, and Ringo's wife plays a journalist who just hangs around and stares at Ringo.

This project must have looked much better on paper and I'm sure McCartney thought this would show him as a sensitive actor and artiste; unfortunately, we see just the opposite - a man who can afford to star in his own movie even if it's a waste of time.

I liked it better after I watched it twice. The music was great! The plot was a little slow I thought.

Non Spoiler Review:

A thoroughly enjoyable movie for a number of reasons. There are fun intentional gags in the style of the Beatle's Help. There are unintentionally funny parts in which physics and McCartney's acting skills are challenged. Written by Paul McCartney of Beatles and Wings fame himself, or was it by McCney? That is the question. An art movie? A comedy? A light fantasy? A personal journey of introspection for him, or a revelation of such to us? I believe it is a combination of all of the above.
There's no doubt about the artistry of the music, and visuals accompanying them. With Sir Paul that's pretty much a given. This movie can easily be touted as a bona fide collection of videos, whether one likes the scripted parts in between or not. He and the studio didn't skimp on the musical sequences, which come fast and furious for those wading impatiently through the admittedly and intentionally silly plot. Now how about artistry in the script writing? I believe there actually is some, despite McCartney's lack of experience. Smooth and clever fades into different scenes, touching moments, wit and humour. It's too bad he didn't have some collaboration with an experienced script writer to polish some of the dialogue, and a film director who caught and re-shot the badly acted parts. This could perhaps have been a great movie instead of a really fun one.
The comedy is silly, just plain fun. It often features Ringo, a wonderful addition to this post Beatles McCartney project.
The plot is not technically fantasy, but slips into that genre through dream sequences, often beautifully done. A scene with a ghost Linda McCartney on a gorgeous horse is eerie now that she's passed away from cancer.
One of my favourite aspects of the film is what seems to be a connection to painful events in McCartney's life of that time period. He picked up his pen for this in another down phase of his career, brought on by the double whammy in 1980 of a pot related jail term in Japan pulling the plug on his Wings band, then the shooting death of his still close friend John Lennon. Considering his comment to an interview that he "wrote it for his sins" and one of the main characters being an ex-con who may really be a good guy, and the first scene with Paul being of him writing "Not such a Bad Boy, " and his choice of other songs, I believe he had a message to send with the film.
I really enjoyed this, but in the end, it's up to each individual to decide if this movie puts the art in McCartney or not.