Film extraordinary: Bono’s Stories of Surrender

It’s a film that ends on a high. A kind of unexpected high that’s heavy and light at the same time, but biographical in its totality of moment.

Bono’s Stories of Surrender, now on Apple TV, ends with an incredible rendition, in full tenor armour, with Torna A Surriento or Take Me To Sorrento. It was one of his father’s favourite songs. A vocal tour de force for the U2 frontman.

Stories of Surrender was released at the end of May.

It’s a monochrome ninety-something minute epic based on Bono’s one-man theatre performances after publishing his biography of the same name.

If you have read the book, you will appreciate the show immensely. Even if you haven’t, it’s still a fantastic watch, if for nothing else than the star’s showmanship.

It’s the theatre of the one-man show, brought to life in a style not dissimilar to Rattle and Hum of the late eighties. It’s storytelling about the ghosts of life stages past, present and hints of a future.

It’s about how love and justice drove a man to be loud about his convictions. Father and son, mother and son. Facing the possibility of death when his heart nearly failed in 2016.

It’s storytelling, it’s struggle, it’s humble

In between, Bono’s struggle with God, religion, his need to banish his ego and be one of us, ordinary folk.

And then, there was the band. There is the band. Where is the band? Larry Mullen Jr., Adam Clayton and The Edge are not there.

His dad is not there. Mom, Iris, is a central character who shaped his adulthood in her absence.

A harp and a few other strings accompany Bono’s tuneful breaks between conversation with the audience.

Empty chairs are arranged and rearranged to illustrate the ghosts, the souls that have and continue to impact his life. The simplicity of it all, in black and white, is engaging to the very end. It’s theatre that holds a shotgun of emotion, relevant to all of us.

The narrative tracks the formation of the band, many of the songs, and what lies beneath.

The singer called himself a ‘fucking idiot’ in the early days of U2, particularly at the time of writing I Will Follow, the anthemic opening track of their debut Boy.

He tells of taking The Edge’s guitar and how he started making ‘drill-like’ sounds. The Edge responded, encouraging him despite not being sure whether he liked it. Bono handed back the guitar, and The Edge turned the riff into what we know today. It’s a moment in time that defined a band that can argue, fight, and create, but always together.

Bono is one of four

Bono called the show a Quarterman performance because he is one of four. And nothing without his comrades.

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Manager Paul McGuinness, now retired, was credited as the glue that held them all together.

Bono tells of their first breakup after Boy and their brushes with fundamentalist Christianity. He credits the love of his life, Alison Hewson, nee Stewart, as the woman who co-wrote his story.

Later, the singer, fully shed of his Achtung Baby Macphisto persona, now only a man in reflection, confesses.

He places his ego in the dock and asks himself whether his crusade to save the world was simply a child-like desire to be the centre of attention, or real?

Surrender, also on the band’s debut album, was the first song that Bono wrote at 18. It was the track that entrenched the somewhat angst, somewhat in love, somewhat seeking internal and external justice feel of the band’s entire career.

Not haunting, exactly, more like loitering in the back of his head, still muttering wisdom wrapped in sarcasm of Bobo’s da’ Bob Hewson.

Like most sons since time began, Bono had a thing about wanting his dad to get him, to understand him and to be proud of him. And when he didn’t, he turned up the volume.

That need for approval, that ache, became the amplifier for the life he built, said Bono.  

The influence of Da’

The story of Bob Hewson, inside the story, settles into the worn armchairs of Finnegan’s Pub in Dublin, the Sorrento lounge to be precise.

This was where father and son would share space more than conversation. He shares anecdotes from Pavarotti to his dad meeting Princess Diana and how, when Pride was released, Bob Hewson admitted to “feeling some”.

Stories of Surrender isn’t just about a band, a singer, and his story. It’s in a way, all our stories. And it’s fantastically woven together as a work where one man exposes himself, and we can all hide behind his narrative.

It’s learning that other people are the giants on whose shoulders we rise and stand. And reach for the stars.

It’s a film where moments of surrender can resonate loudly, to the point of your own tears.

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