Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Film myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The recently released documentary One to One: John & Yoko cast fresh light on a legendary duo’s sojourn in early 1970s New York. Now Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade arrives, potentially promising to show what followed, up to John Lennon’s assassination in 1980. That, in effect, is what Alan G Parker’s film delivers, but in a scrappy, laborious fashion.The film is composed substantially of talking-head interviews, some of them good value because the contributors have authentic 1960s cred: writer Tariq Ali, filmmaker Tony Palmer, counterculture chronicler Barry Miles, Lennon biographer Ray Connolly. There are also several music journalists, some in ill-advisedly rakish headgear; and the late Andy Peebles, who interviewed Lennon for BBC Radio 1 just before his death.But at 140 minutes, the film is overextended and editorially slipshod. Some interviewees — among an almost entirely male, elderly roster — ramble uninterrupted, such as the US radio producer who digresses about accompanying Elton John to the toilet, and a TV journalist spinning a self-serving narrative about breaking the news of Lennon’s death.Despite taking its title from a late Lennon song, none of his music features here. Archive clips include a fair amount of Lennon talking (not surprisingly, the most affecting material here) plus George Harrison spiralling off on a karmic monologue about how John’s death didn’t really matter because he remains eternally present all around us — a moment all the more bizarre for happening in the very unspiritual context of Michael Aspel’s TV chat show.This awkward assemblage tells us little new, while also assuming that we are fully clued in; you may well wonder who this “Jack” is that guitarist Earl Slick keeps mentioning. Still, if you ever wanted to know what Keith Moon’s former personal assistant might have to say about Lennon, this is the film for you.★★☆☆☆In UK cinemas from May 2
