Two of Us (2000 film)

There was great public demand for a Beatles reunion during the 1970s. For example, in September 1976, American promoter Sid Bernstein, who had booked many of the Beatles' historic American appearances in 1964-1966, published a full-page ad in the New York Times publicly requesting the group to reunite and offering millions of dollars.[3] On April 24, 1976, Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels parodied such offers with an on-air announcement that he would pay the Beatles $3,000 if they would perform on his program together. He joked, "divide [the money] up any way you want. If you want to give less to Ringo, that's up to you."[4] John Lennon discussed the Saturday Night Live episode, as well as his relationship with McCartney, in a September 1980 interview for Playboy:

Paul and I were together watching that show. He was visiting us at our place in the Dakota. We were watching it and almost went down to the studio, just as a gag. We nearly got into a cab, but we were actually too tired [...] That was a period when Paul just kept turning up at our door with a guitar. I would let him in, but finally I said to him, 'Please call before you come over. It's not 1956 and turning up at the door isn't the same anymore. You know, just give me a ring.' He was upset by that, but I didn't mean it badly. I just meant that I was taking care of a baby all day and some guy turns up at the door. . . . But, anyway, back on that night, he and Linda walked in and he and I were just sitting there, watching the show, and we went, 'Ha-ha, wouldn't it be funny if we went down?' but we didn't.[5]

Paul McCartney also remembered the event for an interview: "[John] said, 'We should go down there. We should go down now and just do it.' It was one of those moments where we said, 'Let's not and say we did.' "[6]

Two of Us opens with the following introduction:

This fictional film is not endorsed by any person depicted herein and neither such persons nor their families, heirs or related parties have participated in the making of this film. Legend has it that in 1976 — six years after the bitter breakup of the Beatles — Paul McCartney paid a surprise visit to John Lennon at his apartment in New York City. This film makes no attempt to document what may have occurred at such a meeting. Rather, it is a work of fiction in appreciation of two blokes from Liverpool, and the gifts they gave us.

The screenplay consists of a series of long conversations between John Lennon and Paul McCartney (while their wives, as well as other Beatles, are referred to, they do not appear in the production). The discussions between Lennon and McCartney explore a number of issues including the breakup of the Beatles and the difficulties that developed between them after Lennon married Yoko Ono. According to Lindsay-Hogg, "most of the film [consists of] two men and four walls . . . you can't get more intimate than that."[7]

Critic Kevin McDonough argues that, "in less talented hands, Two of Us, like any Beatles-reenactment movie, could have been an awful exercise in bad wigs and Liverpool accents. Instead, Lindsay-Hogg and first-time screen writer Mark Stanfield have created a small masterpiece, a variation on My Dinner With Andre meets The Beatles."[8]

Jim DeRogatis interviewed Lindsay-Hogg about his involvement with the film. Lindsay-Hogg stated that he became involved with the project because the screenplay,

wasn't so much about The Beatles. It was a very good script in which the agency of these two famous people and their story takes you somewhere deeper. To me, that's the nature of friendship: How we grow, how we grow up, and how things change. These boys knew each other when they were 16 and now they're 35 and they have to find a new truth. We all have our own relationships like that, whether they're matrimonial relationships or friendships.[12]

Of the screenplay he further stated, "Mark Stanfield is a good writer and a Beatles fan who has a lot of knowledge [...] Some of that stuff was ad-libbed by the actors because they really got into this, but Mark also wrote characters instead of stereotypes or caricatures."[12]

In another interview, Stanfield discussed the decision to create a fictionalized account of actual people: "I didn't give it a lot of thought. Certainly it's been done before, from Shakespeare through something like Melvin and Howard. And, more recently, in films like Gods and Monsters. Shakespeare in Love, for that matter."[13]

The film's technical advisor (and Beatles historian), Martin Lewis, conducted extensive research, drawing upon both his, as well as Michael Lindsay-Hogg's personal knowledge of The Beatles:

I spent a lot of time working on the project. I dug up hours of film, video, TV and radio material of John and Paul - so that Aidan and Jared could immerse themselves in the characters they were portraying. Much of the material was rare. What I especially wanted to give them were tapes of John and Paul talking when they were not "on" - but being themselves - as they obviously would be when the two of them were together without others around. We also spent hours discussing their characters and the dynamic of their relationship [...] Aidan and Jared were incredibly hard-working. They took their work very seriously. Neither of them planned to be IMPERSONATING their characters. They wanted to capture the ESSENCE of them more than anything.[14]

• VH1 Official Site
• The Making of Two of Us
• Two of Us at IMDb
• Two of Us at AllMovie