Neville | 2025 | USA, UK

There is an essential tension (if not absurdity) about Paul McCartney, and this doco comes pretty close to meaningful insight in exploring that tension. Here we have a guy – and I do mean “a guy” rather literally – who wants to be the only thing he can never be: somebody without ‘former Beatle’ on their CV. The doco at hand unrolls his navigation of the 70s and the formation and [unofficial] dissolution of Wings, and makes much of his desire for Wings to be a group of equals. But of course, this could never be.

The very interesting question that arises on the back of this notion is: would anybody care about Wings at all if this were not the case – if the band were just any group of musicians and not one led by Sir Paul? It’s easy to point to their successes, the greatest of which was the album Band on the Run, and just as easy to forget this was not their debut effort – how many bands not led by former Beatles ever get a second crack after a first album that was dismissed by critics? Or, take a different tack: would the critical reception of the first Wings album have been so harsh had people not wanted them to be The Beatles: Mark II?

This film at least asks these questions, without ever really answering them. But that exploration, punctuated with reflections on life on ‘the farm’ and Paul’s marriage to Linda, was more than enough for me. One walks away immediately wanting to put on one of his albums (I chose McCartney II) and wanting to move to a sheep farm. Increasingly, it is McCartney’s efforts to lead something like a simple life that are the most endearing to me.