Nowhere near as miserable as I remember it: The Beatles – Let It Be reviewed

Beatles lore has long held that the film Let It Be was a depressing portrait of the band falling apart. According to the same lore, that’s why Peter Jackson’s Get Back was such a revelation. Revisiting Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s footage of the group at work in January 1969, Jackson discovered there was far more joy around than anyone suspected – including the surviving Beatles.

Yoko remains a darkly brooding presence (the revisionism that sees her as benign needs its own revision)

All of which, it now turns out, only goes to prove the ever-reliable power of suggestion. I vaguely remember seeing Let It Be on TV in the 1970s, before it disappeared until last week – and finding it as miserable as I already knew everybody said it was. Except that it really isn’t. Having started watching the film on Disney+ in the mental equivalent of the brace position, I soon found myself successively giving way to relief, delight and a familiar sense of awe at all the Beatles achieved, and at how quickly they achieved it.