Documentary film “Bono: Stories of Surrender”, which was released on Apple TV+ on last Friday not long after it was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, presents a series of personal stories from Paul David Hewton, an Irish musician who is mainly known as, yes, Bono. As a part of the promotion for his memoir “Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story”, Bono did a one-man stage show “Stories of Surrender: An Evening of Words, Music and Some Mischief…” at the Beacon Theatre in New York City during 2023, and the documentary did a commendable job of presenting his personal performance with style and sincerity to hold our attention.

As a talented and well-experienced musician who has been prolific along with his fellow members of U2 during last several decades, Bono surely has a lot of personal stuff to tell and reflect on. He remembers well how unhappy he was as he and his father silently coped with each own emotional struggle after the early death of his mother – and how estranged he and his father became to each other during many following years. He also remembers how humble those early years of the band were, and he jokes a bit about how he and his fellow members did not click that well with each other at the very beginning.

The main reason why Bono became more reflective on his life and career than before is pretty simple. Several years ago, he happened to have a serious medical problem due to his inherently faulty heart condition, and he muses on how much that affected his perception of life. While occasionally showing some self-deprecating humor for our little amusement, he is quite frank about his feelings and thoughts in front of the audiences, and that makes me admire him more even though I do not know a lot about his musical career except a handful songs of U2 including those two Oscar-nominated songs (One of them was for Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York” (2002), by the way).

As getting older and then becoming a father later, Bono sincerely tried to get closer to his father, who seldom recognized his son’s talent and success that much even though he was also a fairly good singer. Yes, this is surely something we have seen from those countless musician biography films out there, but Bono presents his personal story about his father with that typical Irish sense of humor and a lot of heart. There is a little amusing episode about how his father remained unimpressed even after being told that his son might collaborate with a certain legendary Italian opera singer, and then we are all the more tickled as Bono flatly tells us about how his two fellow band members refused to meet that famous opera singer just because, well, they are your average hardcore punk rock dudes who do not give much damn about classic music.

All these and other personal stories are often mixed with a lot of music on the stage, and, of course, Bono performs a bunch of songs from U2 as expected. Although he is only assisted modestly by three musicians, he surely knows how to excite and galvanize his audiences, and all those lighting effects around him on the stage make the show look and feel like another big music concert of his at times.

In case of his long musician career, Bono certainly has several funny anecdotes to tell. Besides showing a lot of sincere appreciation toward his three members who have stuck together along with him for many years, he wryly reminisces about when their band could have got disbanded not long after their first world tour just because of their little personal matter involved with religious faith, and that is certainly one of the most humorous moments in the documentary. 

As U2 subsequently became a lot more famous and prominent than before, Bono and his colleagues were requested to participate in a Live Aid concert, and that was when he became interested in philanthropic activities. He talks a bit about what he and his wife witnessed when they visited one poor village in Ethiopia, and that experience inspired an important song from him while also making him all the more passionate about helping millions of people in poverty and hunger. 

Around the later part of the show, Bono becomes more self-reflective while recognizing his many flaws and regrets. As throwing himself more and more into his demanding profession, he often became distant to his wife, and he recognizes how much she had to cope with that while remaining as the light of his life as usual. In case of his father, he still did not open himself that much to his son even when he was going to die sooner or later, and Bono evidently feels bitter about that, even though he came to understand and accept his father to some degree as trying to spend more time with him at his favorite pub.

Nevertheless, Bono keeps the mood lightened up with more music, and director Andrew Dominik and his crew members including cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt competently handle those individual moments in the show. Shot in black and white film, the documentary is often visually fluid and striking, and you may come to want more even when it is about to be over.

Overall, “Bono: Stories of Surrender” is worthwhile to watch for not only its content but also its style and mood. Although it is rather short in my trivial opinion (86 minutes), it accomplishes as much as intended while never overstaying its welcome at all, and it will entertain you enough even if you are not so familiar with its main human subject.