L'histoire de Linda McCartney

To me, most TV-movies seem like they are made by the same production company, with all the elements shoved into a big blender and the results poured into various standard molds. They may look a little different, but the taste is usually bland and generic. Over the past couple of years, several TV flicks with a rock & roll theme have been especially disappointing. Happily, 'The Linda McCartney Story' is not one of them.

This movie about a well-known contemporary love story manages to be effective and moving without being overly sentimental and cloying. Elizabeth Mitchell does a decent job in the title role. She's not a double for the real Linda, but that's OK, and she's always believable. Gary Bakewell, on the other hand, does look a lot like Paul McCartney (he played him in the excellent movie 'Backbeat') and he does a thoroughly convincing job. Most of the real-life characters portrayed here resemble their counterparts, but the thrust of the movie is on the story rather than slavishly recreating the look of any particular time period.

The movie wisely concentrates on the couple's relationship and doesn't spend a lot of time trying to duplicate the music of the Beatles and Wings. Its greatest success may be its pacing, as it is able to crowd thirty years of story into a little over and hour and a half, giving attention to most of the important events in Paul and Linda's lives without making the film fell too rushed. All in all this is a good movie for fans of the McCartneys and one that more casual observers might be interested in.

One other note: Allen Klein, the Beatles' ex-business manager, must still cast a mighty fearsome shadow. He's never depicted on camera in this film and is referred to as "Bruce Grossman."

You already know Linda McCartney's story don't you? Well, of course you do. Did you want to watch this movie to learn the whole story? Sorry, no such luck! This meandering rambling, shallow, no warmth, no depth 'story' will not tell you anything you did not already hear in the media over the years. Her activism? Her vegetarianism? None of that seemed to be in this story, tho' it was mentioned in the advertising trailers, which, by the way, were not in the movie. This 'story' jumped back & forth, back & forth from decade to decade to decade: o, am I getting dizzy! The way that you could tell you were in a different decade was the fact the Linda & Paul went from long hair to short hair back to long hair & back again. O, there seemed to be some information bubbles that were in the tiniest font possible which stayed so long on the screen that if you blinked it is gone! The producers ALL seem to ASSUME that everyone can see 20/20 just like they do (NOT!) Why do these people assume that the 70 million member strong Babyboomers who have now all become 40 years old & up, who now all have to wear corrective lenses, if they did not before like the rest of us, can read this slightly momentarily brief second on the screen information bubbles in the worst contrast between colors to be able to read the information that also hopped from corner to corner to corner? The most love & depth of this movie is the 'nude love scene' (which added nothing to the story, except turns you off)with the Jim Morrison character, whom you knew she did not love in the 1st place. The story had no plot, nowhere to go. You already know that Linda had died a couple of years ago. The 'plot' was so 'well-developed' that you could not tell that Linda & Paul had more than 2 children, since that is all they showed until the very last scene when the family was @ the graveside. If you really, really want to know the whole love story, you have to wait until Paul writes the book, if he will. Well, so much for the 'hollywood' version!

This was such a great movie, I am left speechless. Elizabeth Mitchell and Gary Bakewell (once again portraying Paul with sheer brilliance) make this a movie not to miss! The love these two people shared is so brilliantly displayed by these two leads as is the conflict in the later years of the Fab Four. You do NOT want to miss this one!

Gee, for a tele-movie this really deserves a bit more credit. Linda was an incredible person and this movie represents her character quite well. Though, as some have pointed out, it's unfortunate that the actress playing Linda has the physical looks more of Heather Mills, she actually does a wonderful job of portraying Linda's gentle yet headstrong, resilient and mother-earth ways. Gary Bakewell makes a wonderful Paul in both this and Backbeat, very convincing.

Overall I was super enthralled by the way this flowed and was left in tears at the end.

I would say the casting for John Lennon was absolutely horrendous though. Almost every scene which features John and the other Beatles is actually laughable... John throwing a rock through the McCartney front door and yelling "McCartney! Who the hell do you think you are" is actually among my favourite comedic moments of all time. But it doesn't ruin it for me, because the portrayal is actually so bad that it's unoffensive and hilarious. (btw if you're after a much better portrayal of John check out Phillip McQuillan Phoenix in In His Life: The John Lennon Story).

I didn't like this movie. First of all, I don't know what everyone likes about Elizabeth Mitchell. She annoyed me and she looks like an American TV film actress, not like Linda McCartney. Linda had a certain class about her that Mitchell doesn't have, she's just an over-acting actress while Linda was a personality. Second of all, I really disliked the way John and Yoko are being portrayed in this movie. They were people, a couple, just like Paul and Linda, not devils. And than there's this... Why is it called the Linda McCartney Story, when according to the movie, after she meets Paul, it's not her story at all anymore? Like people have said before, everything Linda did for animal rights and her veggie actions and all that, gets mentioned once. Once! In one sentence! Now excuse me, but that seems to me to be a huge part of the Linda McCartney story. After Linda meets Paul, it's his story that seems to matter the most in this movie. Like when he gets arrested in Japan. When they get back, Paul says to Linda "I know it was harder on you". And we, as viewers, should know that as well, since it's Linda's story. But we don't! We see more of Paul as he's in prison, we only get one brief shot of Linda and the kids in the hotel. I thought this was a badly told story that doesn't do any of the people involved just. I hope Paul never had to see it.