MOVIE REVIEW : Brian, John: More Than Friends?

Only an hour in length and made with the most slender of resources, “The Hours and Times” (at the Nuart for one week) shows how much can be done with very little. A spare but highly polished examination of a weekend John Lennon and Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein spent together in Barcelona in the spring of 1963, it manages an impressive display of both psychological reality and filmmaking sensibility.

That weekend really happened, a four-day break of rest and relaxation at a time when the Beatles were just beginning their climb to international prominence. But since the pair were on their own, Christopher Munch, the 30-year-old filmmaker who not only wrote and directed but also served as his own cinematographer, editor and soundman, has been free to imagine what went on between these two very different men, each devoted, though hardly in the same way, to the other.

Epstein, generally considered the force behind the Beatles, is portrayed (by British actor David Angus) as a fastidious aesthete who functioned as the group’s soulful, worried nanny, always smoothing waters and making allowances for other people. Inevitably knowing the right thing to say, but fated never to say anything brilliant, he is understandably attracted to the biting, prickly Lennon, a working-class genius who probably couldn’t be polite on a bet.

Lennon, played by Ian Hart, is for his part clearly charmed and fascinated by Epstein’s genuine culture and caring. The two could simply be great friends, except for one thing: The openly homosexual Epstein has fallen in love with his protege and is not averse to wearing his heart on his sleeve.

If Epstein knows what he wants, and is in pain because he can’t get it, Lennon is much more ambivalent. He may tell Eppy, as he calls him, “you’re the most engaging and remarkable man I’ve ever met, but I don’t want to have it off with you,” but it never seems that simple. Clearly, he is and he isn’t attracted to Epstein, and that ambivalence leads him to play savage mind games with his companion, tormenting him with pointed banter about gay sex that leaves the other man increasingly frustrated and ill at ease.

Though other people intrude on the nominal privacy of their weekend, including a nervy airline stewardess (Stephanie Pack) and an arch commodities trader (Robin McDonald) met in a gay bar, it is the push-pull of this private war of nerves, the tense flirtation of people trying to decide exactly how close to each other they want to be, that is always the focus of the film’s interest.

Though “The Hours and Times” (Times-rated mature) is slow and talky by design, it never fails to hold the attention. Not only is the acting strong yet understated, but the script has the knack of creating both character and relationships through dialogue. This enhances the film’s sense of eavesdropping on an intricate psychological reality, something that is especially difficult to achieve when the fictionalization of celebrities is involved.

What is equally impressive is that Munch reveals himself, even in this hourlong work, as a director with a well-defined style and sensibility. His aesthetic is one of almost elegant simplicity, marked not only by minimal cutting and slow, graceful camera movements but also a willingness not to move the camera when there is no need to do so.

Given the difficult circumstances it was done under, including only six shooting days and so little money that Munch had to hold casting sessions in a park and location-scout Barcelona on foot, just getting “The Hours and Times” made at all would have been an accomplishment. The fact that Munch was able to imbue it with its own elliptical emotional tone makes this a more than usually promising piece of work.

‘The Hours and Times’

David Angus: Brian Epstein

Ian Hart: John Lennon

Stephanie Pack: Marianne

Robin McDonald: Quinones

An Antarctica Pictures production, released by Good Machine Inc. Director, screenplay, cinematographer, editor Christopher Munch. Music Carlos Calvo, David Loeb. Running time: 1 hour.

Times-rated: Mature.