Rebecca Jones

I think the scene that absolutely epitomises this film is Joaquin Pheonix giving the line "you think you're so great because you have boats" Scenes, costumes, locations, absolutely stunning. Actors & director, enormous budget. Content, character development and understanding, dialogue, emotion, anything of these genuine historical people, severely lacking.

Ed, Cherry, his friends and team obviously offered up some incredible backstage footage and insights. The documentary, however, was over edited and over produced into an amalgamation of events that jumped along an incoherent timeframe. At one point Ed says he had a vision of the documentary following the studio time, the release, the tour. I can 100% see why it didn't end up that way, but I also can't see how it got to where the episodes ended up. Unless I'm missing some deep and meaningful presentation behind it all, the episodes are obviously named for the theme, but this did nothing to assist following it. There was a real chance to "live" the timeline and see all of the content laid out as to what was happening in their lives and how the album then came to be this diary entry, then, for example, adding in the cutbacks to how dancing with eyes closed was originally written and then changed. I pushed through and watched it all, but I don't think people need to heap praise on it just because it's about Ed Sheeran.