Official Synopsis:
The comedy documentary is the story of Ruth Anson, who interviewed The Beatles at Capitol Records in Hollywood, as a teenage reporter for KABC-TV in 1965. During the interview Ruth asked Paul McCartney if he had any plans for marriage. His on camera response was... "Only if you'll marry me." More than 40 years later, now married, a mother and a college professor, Ruth contemplates, "What if I had said, yes?"

  
Our Take:
I’m not even sure how to describe Desperately Seeking Paul McCartney. It’s a semi-documentary/comedy film that’s roots in reality are questionable at best. Here’s the simple breakdown: Ruth Anson was a teenage reporter for ABC. That’s a fact. She interviewed Paul McCartney in 1965 at a press junket. That’s a fact. She asked if he had any plans for marriage, and he replied, in typically Beatles-ian fashion, “Only if you’ll marry me right now.” That’s a fact.

And that’s about all that I can believe is true in this movie. The story picks up in the present, where Ruth pitches the story of reconnecting with Paul McCartney to a group of producers and directors, the biggest credit among them belonging to a guy who worked on an episode of Star Trek. We then follow Ruth as she tries to meet up with Paul McCartney to—I don’t know, see if he remembers her? Propose to him? Force him into marriage? I don’t really know what her goal is. The head producer of the movie also at some point decides to use the film crew to lambaste Anson (this is actually documented on camera), and turns the project into a sort of parody of her. There’s an intervention with her and she goes to therapy, and she even tries to sneak into the Grammy’s with fake press passes to see Paul. She even has a Beatles tribute band member record a truly awful song that she wrote for Paul in one of the movie’s most implausible scenes.

What makes it all unbelievable is not only that often times it seems like many of the participants are acting, but Ruth herself seems slightly nuts. (That’s actually the most believable part of the film.) She runs all around town with this picture of her and Paul from the interview in 1965 spouting out to anyone who will listen that “Paul McCartney asked me to marry him,” as if it were a Get Out of Jail Free card. Despite (or because of) her nuttiness, I was never really sure if anything I was watching was real or if it was all staged. The one thing the movie has going for it is that it’s kind of a train wreck. It’s so bizarrely captivating that once you start, you can’t stop watching.

The only extra feature on the DVD is a DVD-only soundtrack featuring 12 Beatles sound-alike songs. Yippee.

For Beatles fans looking for something new and insightful about their favorite band, this is not the film they want. For Beatles fans looking for something decidedly offbeat and patently strange that has some loose connections to the Fab Four, Desperately Seeking Paul McCartney is just the thing.

Overall Picture:
Movie: C
DVD: C

- Mike Spring

Editor