TWO OF US (1999) John and Paul 'Come Together'

In the opening scene of the VH1 Original Movie THE TWO OF US, a TV interviewer asks McCartney if the Beatles will ever reunite. It's 1976, seven years after the group's bitter breakup, when John and Paul were supposedly out of touch. With the coy smile of a man who has heard this question far too many times, he replies coyly, "Well ... you never know." As we know, they never did. But in this fictional day-in-the-life, Paul pays a surprise visit to John at the Dakota that day. Thanks to great writing and direction and the fine acting of Aidan Quinn as Paul and Jared Harris as John, this doesn't feel like fiction. Not just because their makeup and accents are so good, but also because the actors create such finely etched characters and a believable relationship. The movie starts with the two distant and wary, eases into a slow rekindling of their lifelong friendship, climaxes when they spontaneously decide to accept Lorne Michael’s offer (which was actually made on-air) to reunite on Saturday Night Live, and ends, poignantly, when they realize they are destined not to reunite, even for a TV gag. Seeing this, it's hard not to think of the line in the Lennon-McCartney's song, "In My Life" ("...I'll never lose affection, for people and things that went before..."). (Trivia note: the film was helmed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who had directed the Beatles in the full-length documentary LET IT BE (1970). It's obvious in TWO OF US that he knew Paul and John well.)