Directed by Joe Stephenson, “Midas Man” is a curiosity. As subjects for biopics go, Beatles manager Brian Epstein is long overdue. Unfortunately, “Midas Man” feels like a missed opportunity to get at the heart of this tragic figure, the visionary architect of Beatlemania.
In terms of texture, “Midas Man” has the look and feel of a made-for-television movie, particularly given the way that the film glosses over much of Epstein’s story and wholesale omits some aspects altogether.
“Midas Man” features Jacob Fortune-Lloyd (“The Queen’s Gambit”) in the title role. As Variety recently reported, the film’s production was notoriously fraught with a host of ancillary issues, yet Fortune-Lloyd gamely infuses Epstein’s character with welcome senses of daring and vulnerability. Sadly, any hope of authenticity largely begins and ends with his performance.
As a biographical figure, Epstein’s short life was plagued with tension and drama. At times, “Midas Man” seems to approach these moments with an odd sense of blankness. During Epstein’s lifetime, homosexuality was criminalized in Great Britain, forcing him to live a closeted lifestyle. To its credit, “Midas Man” doesn’t shy away from this aspect of his persona. But even still, the film fails to take full advantage of the everyday tensions that pocked his existence. And when it comes to his long-rumored dalliance with John Lennon (Jonah Lees) during a Spanish vacation, “Midas Man” is entirely mute, eliding the situation altogether.
Indeed, Epstein’s relationship with the Beatles—the most significant facet of his professional achievement—is reduced to a series of wisecracks from the bandmates. Other than Epstein’s overarching belief in their talent when others ignored them, the film never truly leans into the nature of his association with those four lads from Liverpool. In terms of secondary characters, Charley Palmer Rothwell positively shines as George Martin. By contrast, Jay Leno seems miscast as Ed Sullivan, strangely rendering the legendary showman into a gangster persona.
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Perhaps most significantly, “Midas Man” serves as a cautionary tale of sorts about the urgent need for facticity in contemporary cinema. Today’s viewers simply expect more when it comes to films that address historical figures. Decades ago, movie audiences were eminently more forgiving when it came to filmmakers’ claims about needing to reshape history to accommodate the silver screen.
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Take “The Buddy Holly Story” (1978), for instance, in which Gary Busey portrayed the legendary singer-songwriter from Lubbock, Texas. In those pre-Internet times, we were simply happy to have a movie about Holly, no matter how many liberties the filmmakers took with his life story. But those days are gone. And this is where “Midas Man” fails the test: it simply doesn’t feel like a genuine telling of Epstein and the Beatles’ incredible story. If anything, it comes off like Beatles-lite. In short, our expectations in terms of authenticity reign supreme, and folks like Sam Mendes, who is preparing to tell the Beatles’ story across four films, would do well to heed this warning.
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