The Beatles are still engaging in the restored version.

Rating: 9/10 (26 December 2000)

The most striking thing to me about AHDN is the youthful spontaneity of the Beatles and their fans. The Beatles seem to be at such ease portraying themselves in the film. They WERE themselves in the film. The director, Richard Lester, easily blends performances of their songs in a plot that serves to string them together, that plot also having a quirky, sometimes rickety, yet purposeful life of its own. The dialog can have an appealing, off-handed humor.
This film has wonderful, surprising moments. In one scene, Ringo, who has abandoned a TV studio rehearsal to walk around London, meets a boy of twelve or thirteen by a river. They chat a bit, and then the boy leaves him and runs down an embankment to join his mates as they skip stones on the water. You get the impression that, with all their fame, the Beatles might have enjoyed that simple luxury as well.