Among the pivotal dates in the life of the Beatles, 27 August 1967 is one of the most significant. That’s when the band’s manager Brian Epstein died, aged thirty-two, in his London flat, the result of an accidental overdose of barbiturates and alcohol. His death precipitated the fracturing and ultimate fragmentation of the group. The financial disarray that dogged them at the time of their split in 1970 was something that Epstein would certainly have prevented. He was also a harmonising influence when personal dynamics became fraught, and it is no coincidence that following his death the music of the Beatles diminished in quality.

Midas Man, a biopic from the emerging British director Joe A. Stephenson, concludes just before Epstein’s death, which came less than two months after the release of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The film depicts Epstein’s life between 1961 and 1967, portraying his discovery of the Beatles, his commercial guidance of them, and his well-documented personal struggles. Epstein’s homosexuality, kept secret from the public while he was alive, caused him acute private turmoil, to say nothing of the fact that homosexual acts were illegal in the United Kingdom until 1967. He also suffered from substance addiction, a workaholic nature, and an uncomfortable relationship with his family, all of which form part of the film.

There is potential, then, for Midas Man to be a sad, even heavy affair. But it is not entirely. Stephenson, working with a sensitive screenplay by Brigit Grant and Jonathan Wakeham, treads a delicate line between the playful and the serious, creating a film that is for the most part a soulful celebration of the man who, effectively, bestowed the Beatles on the world.

The Beatles in Midas Man (courtesy of Transmission Films)

This surprising lightness is achieved in a number of ways. One is the fact that Epstein, played by Jacob Fortune-Lloyd with immense charm and charisma, frequently breaks the fourth wall with direct addresses to the audience. These are mostly witty and intimate confessions between Epstein and us, but on two occasions Stephenson outdoes himself with sequences that see Fortune-Lloyd delivering monologues in front of real historical footage of screaming fans, street riots, and Martin Luther King Jr speeches, as he imbibes whisky after whisky and pill after pill. These collage-like sections are among the film’s best moments, firmly aligning Epstein’s personal unravelling with the chaos and social upheaval of the 1960s.

Another standout, cleverly handled scene comes early on when Epstein sees the Beatles perform for the first time, at The Cavern Club in Liverpool. Stephenson here clearly takes a cue from the set-piece in Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’s West Side Story (1961) when Tony meets Maria: the room goes silent, other people disappear, and there is a moment of illumination and transcendence as we witness the awakening of genuine love.

Detail-obsessed Beatles fans, of whom there are many, will appreciate a scattering of lines and references that nod to trivia from the band’s history. For example, George Harrison (Leo Harvey Elledge) repeats several of his most recognisable lines from the film A Hard Day’s Night, while there is a throwaway reference to Ringo Starr’s (Campbell Wallace) notoriously sensitive stomach.

However, this is all peripheral to the film’s main preoccupation: Epstein’s journey from ambitious salesman in his family’s Liverpool furniture store to architect of an unprecedented global pop phenomenon. Midas Man’s first half is devoted to Epstein’s discovery and promotion of the band, whom he quickly came to refer to as ‘my boys’. The film moves with a pace and sense of excitement reflective of the breakneck speed of the Beatles’ rise to fame in 1963-64. This story is handled briskly but with care, even if the performance of Jonah Lees as John Lennon leans towards the hammy at times, and despite the fact that four of them are often presented as little more than exuberant, excitable puppies.

Things slow down in the film’s second half as Epstein’s private struggles come to the fore – from around 1965 onwards. Here, Midas Man loses its way a touch. A laboured, overlong scene where Epstein engages in a heart-to-heart with another of the pop acts under his wing, Cilla Black (Darci Shaw), stalls momentum. A fictional love affair with a failing American actor (‘Tex Ellington’, played by Ed Speleers) feels a strange and unnecessary addition, and the wrong device for exploring Epstein’s vulnerability and loneliness. It is significant that the film does not in any way acknowledge the fact that Epstein nursed an ‘infatuation’ with Lennon, as Lennon biographer Phillip Norman put it, that verged on the sexual. Drawing this out – if only a little – might have been more effective than inventing this unconvincing romantic interest. Another film, director Christopher Münch’s The Hours and Times (1991), is entirely devoted to a famous trip Epstein and Lennon took to Spain in 1963 – a holiday that led to rumours about a physical relationship between the two. There is no mention of this trip in Midas Man.

Another source of Epstein’s depression and insecurity is a lack of warmth from his father Harry (a typically powerful Eddie Marsan). He also lives with the threat of violence and blackmail as a result of his forays to the deserted ends of town in search of sex with men. Fortune-Lloyd is absorbing in these scenes, as is Emily Watson as Malka, Epstein’s sympathetic mother, when consoling and protecting her son (his family were, from early on, aware of his homosexuality). In fact, with the possible exception of the band members, all performances in Midas Man are accomplished – including cameos from Jay Leno as American TV host Ed Sullivan, and comedian Eddie Izzard (also known as Suzy Izzard) as the Beatles’ first manager, Allan Williams.

Films about the Beatles are bound to be polarising, risking accusations of reductionism and revisionism. Despite numerous flaws, the filmmaking flair of Stephenson and the undeniable screen presence of Fortune-Lloyd are central to ensuring that Midas Man is no plastic, nostalgia-driven exercise in sentimentality. It is layered and thoughtful, as Epstein was himself.

Midas Man (Transmission Films) is released nationally on 29 August 2024.

*An earlier version of this review noted the presence in the film of an Orange Tiny Terror amplifier, which was not released until the 2000s, terming this ‘a minor lapse in research’. The amplifier did not in fact appear within the film, though it does appear in publicity material for the film. ABR has removed this line and apologises for the error.