Stream It Or Skip It?

Bono: Stories of Surrender (now streaming on Apple TV+) transforms the singer and activist’s best-selling 2022 memoir and accompanying book tour into a thoughtful film, directed by Andrew Dominik (Blonde), that’s partly a one-man-show and partly a feature for new interpretations of the U2 songbook. Shot mostly at the Beacon Theatre in New York City, Surrender presents Bono in contemplative mode on stage, as he connects childhood and family experiences to his life as a professional rock musician and his pursuit of activism and social justice causes. The words of his father – “Anything strange or startling?” – mix with modes of faith, touches of Irish history, and the music that inspired Bono, from The Ramones and Public Image Ltd to The Clash and even opera singer Luciano Pavarotti. And don’t forget U2’s own music. “A song is forming,” the singer says on the dark stage, over a cello’s thrum. “A song that will be called ‘I Will Follow’…”      

The Gist: In shimmery black-and-white film Bono appears. Dressed in his most recent rock star garb of tinted shades, black blazer and necklaces over a vest with no shirt, he is espousing on the chambers of his heart. Because you see, his heart is different than the organ of any other human. As he continues to speak metaphorically about ventricles and aorta – Bono-phorically – the camera widens on a stage dressed with strobing light features and a simple table and chairs. “Blood,” Bono is saying, “making a mess. Which is what blood does when it’s not keepin’ you alive.” 

If you’ve ever seen or heard U2 in the 50 years they’ve been a band, you’ll recognize in scenes from Stories of Surrender Bono’s way with stage presence and a meaningful turn of phrase. You’ll also recognize his unquenchable thirst to be the center of attention, but at least he’s upfront about that, too. And as Bono’s supporting musicians appear out of the darkness – in Surrender, the other members of U2 exist only in stories – he’ll take one of his monologous setpieces toward its inevitable union with the quartet’s material. The pluck of a harp introduces “Vertigo,” and while Bono’s lyrical interpretation is more subtle in this context, that single was designed to be stadium-ready, and its singer is a frontman for the ages. While often moody and emotional, Surrender never forgets that.

Bono getting together with his wife Ali Stewart, writing the early U2 standout “Out of Control,” and losing his mother Iris, all in the space of a few weeks in late 1970s Ireland, form a foundation for his memories in Stories in Surrender. But the film’s frame is the singer’s life with his father, Bob Hewson. Bono traces his feelings on stage, from a childhood flush with grief – in true Irish fashion, the maternal loss of which could not be spoken – and young Paul Hewson’s longing to connect with his opera-singing Da through music. Through U2’s popular emergence. And onward to successive summit meetings between father and son at an Irish pub called Finnegan’s, where Bono plays both sides of the conversation. Pavarotti, the legendary tenor, is a character in these stories. (Bono does a pretty good Italian accent.) So is Diana, Princess of York. (On his Irish father meeting a British royal: “800 years of oppression, disappearing in 8 seconds.”) And so are the U2 songs he wrote with his band, the songs that came from all of these experiences – “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” “With or Without You,” “Where the Streets Have No Name” – and how Bono came to understand it all as his story of surrender.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Stories of Surrender director Andrew Dominik took a similarly evocative, searching approach for his pair of documentaries about Nick Cave, This Much I Know to be True and One More Time with Feeling. And Bono and U2 guitarist the Edge were featured in conversation and performance with David Letterman for A Sort of Homecoming on Disney+.

Performance Worth Watching: The Jacknife Lee Ensemble adds a lot of wonderful texture to Bono’s Stories of Surrender performance. On the stage, in the shadows, Lee (percussion and keyboards), Kate Ellis (cello), and Gemma Doherty (harp) are unobtrusive by design. But their sound lends beautiful color to Bono’s monologues, and they burst into the light on urgent versions of “Beautiful Day” and “Pride (In the Name of Love)”.     

Memorable Dialogue: Stories of Surrender is dedicated to Bono’s parents, Iris and Bob Hewson, and the arc of his relationship with “the Da” centers his performance. 

“Now, if you want your child to grow up to be a grandstanding stadium singer, there are a couple of ways to go about it. You can tell them they’re gifted – that the world needs to hear their voice. This is the Italian method. Or, you can completely ignore them. This can be the Irish method. Much more effective in my case. I craved my father’s attention – I wanted him to think I had music in me, too.”  

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The spectacle of a guy who’s made a life and living out of making a spectacle of himself, creating a film around the traveling one-man-show he based on his own book, is – to his credit – not lost on Bono. “Writing a memoir is a whole other level of navel-gazing,” he says early in Stories of Surrender, acknowledging the all-consuming spectacle. “But here we go.” For longtime fans, of course, this journey into the center of Bono’s mind will be more than welcome. Many have been on this trip with him since he wore a mullet in the album art for October in 1981. But Bono is well-versed in charm and charisma. You don’t make a living as a frontman for this many decades if you aren’t. And he’s able to counteract the navel-gazing of Surrender with an Irishman’s flair for storytelling. In one setup, he even enjoys a Guinness onstage. This superpowered Bono Rizz emboldens too the quieter moments of the film, because Bono’s also really good at weaving his emotions and memories into the larger fabric of humanity, and expanding on how his experiences informed his activism. This weaving can feel so seamless, it allows the moments of Surrender that feel like a presentation for his One Campaign charity to sneak up on you.

Our Call: If you’re a U2 freak, this is a definite STREAM IT – Stories of Surrender will insert you into Bono’s mind and heart. But the charm and insight of the singer and activist carries the rest of us along, too, and Andrew Dominik’s direction makes Surrender a revealing journey. 

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.