When it comes to schmaltz in music, you can’t find anything that embodies it more than “Ebony & Ivory”, the often-parodied duet by Sir Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, two undeniable musical geniuses that found themselves reduced to a saccharine, heavy-handed message about racism and the importance of finding common ground, regardless of background, proving that differences ultimately mean very little. While a charming song in its own right, it has become something of a joke as time has progressed, a punchline used when discussing toothless, innocuous music that believes that it is making a statement, but in reality is doing barely anything of value outside of just occupying some time. For this reason alone, we have to appreciate Jim Hosking’s attempts to use this as the foundation for a film that bears the same title as the song, which positions itself as a supposedly true story of the weekend in which Wonder voyages to Mull of Kintyre, the remote island situated off the coast of Scotland, where McCartney had a home and composed some of his most notable works. Naturally, as can be expected from the director (who is returning to the medium after six years, likely a result of the tepid reviews garnered by his previous film), this is only the starting point for what very quickly becomes an outrageous, offbeat work that threads the needle of logic and skirts around the edges of decency, attempting to be a thoroughly entertaining glimpse into the creative process, while also being filtered through the demented lens that put the director on the map in the first place. Unnerving and hilarious, and quintessentially strange in both concept and execution, Ebony & Ivory is one of the year’s most deranged works, and a film that is quite simply impossible to ignore, whether for better or for worse.

What immediately strikes the viewer while stepping into the world of this film is that Hosking was clearly not interested in playing by the rules, which is his overall aim as a filmmaker and a quality that has defined much of his previous work in both film and television. What initially starts as a very loosely-defined biographical account of the conception of a very popular song (although the film doesn’t actually imply that it is based in fact – the two leads are not even named within the film, and are credited solely as “Paul” and “Stevie”, which is both a means to avoid any legal consequences and a method to give him some more artistic liberty), but quickly goes off the rails and becomes something else entirely. What this film is aiming to achieve is anyone’s guess, and that’s part of the fun – we can look at it as a very clear embodiment of the themes of the song, with two people coming together and spending a few days in complete isolation, where their differences are initially a cause for conflict before they discover that, despite their varying backgrounds and artistic approaches, they are not too dissimilar, and they manage to work through their limitations to forge quite a strong friendship. It can also be viewed as a bitingly funny account of the artistic process and how some of the greatest works are sometimes produced through challenging circumstances. We don’t have much information about the origins of the song from which this film draws inspiration, but Hosking does make his educated guess (by which I mean he decides to go in his bizarre direction and hope that the audience can leap onto his wavelength), which proves to be exceptionally compelling, if not slightly limiting in a few ways, since it does struggle to establish its overall intentions without becoming slightly too unwieldy in a few places, at least narratively, which is a notable but otherwise inconsequential detail.

While we may assume that “Ebony & Ivory” was produced in purely copasetic circumstances, based on the professionalism of the two artists behind its creation, it would also be dreadfully boring to portray it as such in terms of what this film was trying to achieve. Instead of crafting it in the vein of the traditional musical biopic (or even those that are deliberate parodies), the film chooses to be a more complex examination of these themes, filtered through a deeply surreal, off-putting lens. Ebony & Ivory is designed to be an acquired taste, being as unappealing as it is deeply hypnotic, and it can be argued that it is purposefully trying to divide the audience into those who are able to appreciate its unconventional quirks and those who find it to be extremely grotesque. Hosking certainly does relish being able to unsettle the audience in a way that feels deliberately quite cruel, but also blisteringly funny in its way. The tone is intentionally unconventional – it oscillates between dreamlike absurdism and juvenile pointlessness, never choosing a particular approach and instead keeping the audience in suspense. There is a lot of banality in this film – certain scenes go on far longer than necessary, creating an atmosphere of complete discomfort and slight existential despair, frequently creating an atmosphere that feels dense, challenging and frankly macabre. Bodies are viewed as both horrifyingly unnatural and deeply beautiful, and the liberal approach to showing the relationship between these two men (with some very heavy homoerotic sub-text, which seems to be the director’s modus operandi with all of his work) makes the film a far more adventurous affair than we would imagine, and draws our attention to the director’s intentions, or whatever meaning we can glean from his work in the process.

Ebony & Ivory is crafted as a two-hander, and the central duo are the only characters we encounter throughout the entire film. As a result, the strength of the film depends on the work being done by the two leads, whose performances anchor the film and create such a vibrant, complex work that never seems satisfied with settling for the most obvious of ideas. Sky Elobar (who has collaborated with the director on multiple occasions) is McCartney, while Gil Gex is Wonder – and they’re both exemplary, understanding the assignment of the film perfectly while also being able to define it along their unique terms. The idea that any performer should be considered brave for doing what most people do every day is laughable, but we can see the fearlessness required in these roles, since both actors need to bare themselves, both literally and emotionally. It’s certainly not an example of accuracy in terms of the people they’re playing – Elobar’s Yorkshire accent is atrocious, and Gex is not very good at playing someone who is blind, and neither can convincingly portray the people they were tasked with bringing to life, but in many ways, that seems to be the entire point. Much like the film that surrounds them (and which they ultimately play a role in defining), the actors are operating on a different plane of logic altogether, to the point where accuracy would feel like a disappointing quality. So much of Ebony & Ivory is built from the foundation of seeing two very bad imitations that also happen to be deeply moving and complex, which is all part of the experience.

While it may not hit the enormously satisfying heights of The Greasy Strangler (a film that immediately established him as the heir apparent to John Waters and Ken Russell), Hosking does swiftly recover from the dreadful An Evening with Beverley Luff Linn with this film, which sees him returning to his more provocative, surreal roots while also pushing forward and making some very strange but otherwise quite delightful decisions. None of it ultimately becomes enough to elevate the film beyond its quirky limitations. Hosking is an undeniably gifted filmmaker, and it is a pity it took him so long to return to directing, since his debut was one of the best films of its year, and its follow-up was dismal but had enough potential to be at least partially of interest. His most endearing quality is his ability to force us to expect the unexpected – we cannot predict where this film is going, nor are we able to justify some of its more peculiar decisions. Nonetheless, it is wildly entertaining and frankly a bit moving, particularly in how it explores the connections between friendship and creativity in the act of collaborating on a project, both of which are vitally important and unexpectedly compelling. It’s a fantastic work that compensates for its shortcomings through pure ambition and a never-ending display of ideas, all of which come to form the foundation for a truly strange but extremely enjoyable dark comedy that never makes sense, but still makes it very clear that some works are better left entirely open to interpretation in one way or another.