SCREEN EXTRA
THE LOST WEEKEND A LOVE STORY
Poignant documentary about May Pang’s relationship with John Lennon and her role in his mid-’70s renaissance.
By Peter Watts
BRIARCLIFF
ENTERTAINMENT
Waves of joy: Lennon with May Pang and Julian
8/10
DISMISSED as his “lost weekend”, John Lennon’s relationship with May Pang was no brief fling. It lasted 18 months, during which time the couple set up home together while Lennon enjoyed his most productive creative period for years. This film, directed by Eve Brandstein, Richard Kaufman and Stuart Samuels, tells that story from Pang’s perspective, starting with her arrival at Apple Records in New York as an unworldly, music-loving, working-class, Chinese-American teen. Pang was scooped up by Yoko Ono, who employed her as personal assistant and gave her various tasks in the not-entirely-normal LennonOno household, such as finding a bunch of houseflies for their 1970 movie Fly and demonstrating “bagism” by getting in abag when Lennon and Ono were invited on American talk shows.