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Review

Taking the historic, seemingly unimportant fact that Beatles' manager and early guiding force Brian Epstein took John Lennon on a four-day vacation to Barcelona, Spain, just months before the meteoric rise of the Fab Four, director Münch has fashioned a fictional "what-might-have-happened" queer drama.

Epstein -- Jewish, upper-class and gay -- and Lennon -- a Liverpudlian working-class musician with unlimited but raw promise -- seem an unlikely pair although their mentor/student relationship is rather intense. Their vastly different lifestyles attract and distance the two and is especially evident in Epstein's sexual attraction for the appreciative but hopelessly straight Lennon. This sexual tension provides the dramatic centerpiece in this understated and low-budget picture which works both as an engrossing exploration of the shifting nature and intensity of friendship and a touching example of unrequited love. Hart, who portrays Lennon, would play him again in Backbeat.