John Lennon: The Last Interview Undercuts Its Insights With Pointless AI Gimmicks
John Lennon: The Last Interview, directed by Steven Soderbergh, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and explores the final interview of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. While the documentary features engaging archival material and insights from the interviewers, it falters with the use of generative AI, detracting from its impact. The film captures Lennon's reflections on love, communication, and fatherhood, but ultimately struggles to stand out due to its reliance on gimmicks.
- ▪The documentary features the last interview of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, conducted on December 8, 1980.
- ▪Soderbergh uses archival material and voiceovers, but the addition of AI elements makes the film less memorable.
- ▪Interviewers Laurie Kaye, Dave Sholin, and Ron Hummel share their experiences and insights from the interview.
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| Original publisher | TIME — Top |
| Canonical URL | https://time.com/article/2026/05/16/john-lennon-the-last-interview-review-cannes/ |
| Publication time | Sat, 16 May 2026 18:55:18 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-16T19:05:18.985Z |
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Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Just when you think you can’t tolerate another Beatles documentary, along comes one that you truly might not be able to tolerate. With John Lennon: The Last Interview, premiering here at the Cannes Film Festival, Steven Soderbergh covers some potentially rich, or at least just affecting, territory. On Dec. 8, 1980, John Lennon and Yoko Ono sat down at their home in the Dakota with a small crew from San Francisco’s KFRC radio. It was the only radio press Lennon and Ono would be giving to promote their recently released Double Fantasy album, and it of course turned out to be the final interview of Lennon’s life: he would be dead later that evening, after being shot by Mark David Chapman.That’s not a bad dramatic backdrop for a documentary, and when Soderbergh sticks to the classic…
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