Jacob Fortune-Lloyd stars as “Fifth Beatle” Brian Epstein in “Midas Man.” (Kerry Spicer)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In it, Brian (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) sits with his parents, Harry and Malka (Eddie Marsan and Emily Watson), as they sit in the pews together as the only people in a Liverpool synagogue after services are over, each man wearing a kippah and tallit. Malka, who was called Queenie, says to her son, \u201cIt seems like only yesterday you and your brother were up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
They discuss Brian\u2019s future and his desire to be in the music business, leading an initially skeptical Harry to allow Brian to sell rock and pop records as an annex to the family\u2019s furniture and retail business. The success of this side venture ultimately propelled him to become the manager of an exciting new band \u2014 The Beatles \u2014 and the Jew most associated with Beatlemania.<\/p>\n
Over the years, Epstein \u2014 sometimes considered the \u201cFifth Beatle\u201d \u2014 has been the subject of multiple books and, more recently, a statue in Liverpool. \u201cMidas Man,\u201d now streaming on the platform Olyn, represents the first film that makes him the center of attention.<\/p>\n
While the movie spent the last several months on the Jewish film festival circuit, including a spot at the New York Jewish Film Festival earlier this month, Epstein\u2019s Jewishness is not its focus. It deals more with Epstein being a closeted gay man, his music career and his relationships with the Beatles and his family.<\/p>\n
But there are snippets of Epstein\u2019s Jewish story in addition to the synagogue scene. In another scene, a heart-to-heart during the wedding of Epstein\u2019s brother, singer Cilla Black (Darci Shaw) praises the \u201cfood and dancing\u201d at the event and suggests that for that reason, she\u2019d like to have a Jewish wedding herself.<\/p>\n
Later, we see Harry\u2019s funeral, where the cantor sings the prayers and they do the traditional rending of garments, and at another point in the film, Epstein meets future business partner Nat Weiss (played by James Corrigan), they say \u201cL\u2019chaim\u201d as they toast, and Weiss addresses him as \u201cboychick.\u201d<\/p>\n
The notes are the only ones the film hits about Epstein\u2019s Jewish upbringing and identity, which were so prominent that Beatles frontman John Lennon routinely invoked them while poking fun at his friend. (Lennon quipped that Epstein\u2019s biography ought to be called \u201cQueer Jew,\u201d according to a biographer who traveled with the band.)<\/p>\n
Brigit Grant, the film\u2019s co-screenwriter, wrote for the British publication The Jewish News last fall about how Epstein was born on Yom Kippur, how Epstein\u2019s grandfather was a Yiddish-speaking refugee from Lithuania, and how she learned from an uncle that when Epstein studied for his bar mitzvah he initially learned the wrong Torah portion but learned quickly enough to give a \u201cvery competent\u201d reading of the correct one. Epstein also sought out Yom Kippur services while on the road with the band and resisted entreaties to change his surname, she wrote.<\/p>\n
The synagogue scenes, Grant wrote, were shot at Liverpool\u2019s Princes Road Synagogue, as the actual Greenbank synagogue that hosted both Epstein\u2019s bar mitzvah and funeral no longer exists, and Marsan wore Grant\u2019s late father\u2019s tallit in the film.<\/p>\n
Fortune-Lloyd, who plays Epstein, is Jewish. Watson is not and neither is Marsan, although he\u2019s played several Jewish characters in his career, including the father of Amy Winehouse in last year\u2019s biopic \u201cBack to Black.\u201d In 2021, Marsan played an anti-fascist Jewish character in a BBC series called \u201cRidley Road\u201d and faced what he called \u201crelentless\u201d abuse as a result.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll I did was play a Jew, I dread to think what would\u2019ve happened if I was actually Jewish,\u201d he tweeted at the time, according to contemporaneous reports. (He has since deleted his account on the social network X.)<\/p>\n
Despite the omissions, the Jewish elements of Epstein\u2019s biography are more present in \u201cMidas Man\u201d than music composed by the band Epstein managed. Variety recently covered what it called the \u201cnightmare production\u201d of the film, which dragged on for years, had three different directors at different times, and was plagued by long-term uncertainty over whether the film would be allowed to use the Beatles\u2019 music.<\/p>\n
It ended up being able to use covers the band performed, like \u201c\u201dMoney (That\u2019s What I Want),\u201d \u201cPlease, Mr. Postman,\u201d and \u201cBesame Mucho.\u201d There are no original Lennon-McCartney compositions, although there are a couple of scenes where a character mentions that a certain song just hit #1.<\/p>\n
The movie depicts the scenes before and after the Beatles\u2019 famous 1964 debut on \u201cThe Ed Sullivan Show,\u201d with Jay Leno playing Sullivan, but not the performance. Instead, the famous \u201cAll You Need is Love\u201d live broadcast is cut off before the song starts.<\/p>\n
Epstein died not long after his father of an accidental overdose at age 32 in 1967. He had both a funeral in Liverpool \u2014 famously officiated by a rabbi who didn\u2019t know him \u2014 and a London memorial service attended by the Beatles and officiated by a different rabbi, but the film shows neither. The last we see of Epstein is him walking symbolically across Abbey Road before a title informs viewers of his death.<\/p>\n
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