Midas Man review: ‘Epstein entrances in sympathetic biopic’

The rejections up to that point had been many and, in the case of Decca, delivered with humiliation as the music industry’s establishment of the day failed to spot the talent that to Epstein was as obvious as the rising sun.

With the young svengali played with charm and vulnerability by Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, this portrait written by Brigit Grant and Jonathan Wakeham rehabilitates the manager’s reputation and dismisses any lingering accusations that Epstein exploited the Fab Four.

With his 24-carat public-school accent, Fortune-Lloyd’s Epstein cuts an incongruous figure in scenes – some shot in a synagogue – with his conservative parents. This is especially apparent in the exchanges with his emotionally distant father Harry, played by Eddie Marsan, who here is a harder-nosed patriarch than the loving father figure the actor recently played in the Amy Winehouse biopic, Back to Black.

There is yet more star wattage in the cameos. Eddie Suzy Izzard plays a seedy Alan Williams, who first managed the fledgling group. According to this account he was glad to be shot of them. And when Epstein is trying to break America in New York, none other than Jay Leno pops up as the legendary TV talk-show host Ed Sullivan.

In a memorable scene Epstein implores Sullivan to give his charges his show’s coveted headline slot while attempting to eat his beefburger with a knife and fork. It was to be a defining moment in the band’s mercurial rise.

Directed by Joe Stephenson, the film is pleasingly awash with 1960s period style and is anchored by Fortune-Lloyd’s moving portrait of a gay man tragically isolated, assaulted and blackmailed because of his homosexuality, which was then, of course, still illegal in the UK.

 Yet the further into the story we get, the less dramatic it becomes. An early scene in which Epstein discovers the band while they play a lunchtime gig in The Cavern is spine-tingling. But other than the episode in which Epstein fires original drummer Pete Best at producer George Martin’s behest, and another where the contrarian Lennon (Jonah Lees) fleetingly has a go at his kindly but driven manager, there is little conflict later on.

That the band’s original music is absent in the film because of rights issues is less a problem than the fact that they are largely an anodyne presence. Yes, this is film about their manager and not them. But ten years ago the play Epstein: The Man who Made the Beatles offered far more drama, depicting George (played in Midas Man by Leo Harvey-Elledge), the most spiritual member of the group, as the one most likely to give Epstein grief over money; Paul as a somewhat calculating figure and John as a loudmouth prone to dishing out the odd antisemitic jibe.

Whatever the truth, this film could have done more with such complexity to sustain it, which rather makes the case for a series as opposed to a one-off.