Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (April 14, 2022)
Mention the disco craze of the late 1970s and the image of the Bee Gees invariably comes to mind, as they personified the genre. However, the group existed long before Saturday Night Fever, and 2020’s documentary How Can You Mend a Broken Heart gives us a look at the band’s entire career.
Mend uses a standard framework that mixes archival elements with interviews. In the latter domain, we hear modern-day comments from musicians Barry Gibb, Eric Clapton, Vince Melouney, Mark Ronson, Noel Gallagher, Mykaell Riley, Lulu, Nick Jonas, Alan Kendall, Dennis Bryon, Blue Weaver, Chris Martin, Justin Timberlake, and Vince Lawrence, NEMS management team’s Peter Brown, Barry’s wife Linda, Maurice’s widow Yvonne, former RSO Records CEO Bill Oakes, studio engineer Karl Richardson, producer Albhy Galuten, club DJ Nicky Siano, radio DJ Charley Steiner, and Robin Gibb’s widow Dwina.
We also get older comments from musicians Maurice Gibb, Barry Gibb, Robin Gibb, Andy Gibb, Alice Cooper, Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham, manager Robert Stigwood, producer Arif Mardin, and radio DJ Steve Dahl.
Mend follows a standard chronological progression. Born in England, the Gibbs moved to Australia during the brothers’ youth.
After a brief look at the band’s earliest time in Australia, we leap to the mid-late 1960s with the Bee Gees back in England to further their nascent musical career. We view their early successes, problems – and a 1969 breakup – before the mid-70s move to R&B/disco, massive fame and the inevitable downfall.
Due to my age, I only got to know the “dance Bee Gees” of the mid-late 1970s in real time. “You Should Be Dancing” in 1975 became my first exposure to the band, and I hopped on the Saturday Night Fever bandwagon with both feet in 1977.
“Dance Bee Gees” remains the only era of the band’s career that works for me still. I can appreciate the songcraft of their earlier material but find those tunes to seem too mawkish and melodramatic for my taste.
That said, Mend spends far too little time on this period of the group’s existence. The program speeds through the pre-1975 Bee Gees rapidly and only obliges about one-third of the program to this seminal period.
This feels like a mistake, as obviously the band’s first decade or so feels pivotal. In addition, it’s not like Bee Gees didn’t enjoy massive success in that span – sure, they now enjoy stronger attachment to their dance period, but they still sold tons of records previously.
In addition, Mend approaches chronology in an awkward manner. For instance, we learn of the Bee Gee’s 1969 breakup and then hop back to 1967 for the death of Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein.
Other chronological issues seem likely to irk attentive viewers. For example, as Mend looks at the disco oversaturation of the post-Fever late 1970s period, it uses Rick Dees’ “Disco Duck” as an example.
The problem? “Duck” came out in 1976 so it pre-dated Fever and the true explosion of the disco craze after Fever.
Bizarrely, Mend completely ignores the Bee Gees’ starring roles in 1978’s flop Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. While the program doesn’t need to spend a lot of time on it, given that it acted as the first ding against the Bee Gees in their peak commercial period, Mend should discuss it.
Perhaps these issues would bother me less if Mend felt like a more satisfying documentary, but it tends to come across as rather superficial. Granted, 111 minutes, means we don’t find sufficient space to explore the career of a band that lasted for decades, so I expect some of this.
Nonetheless, Mend barely dips its toe in a lot of the band’s existence, and it rushes too much. Again, this particularly impacts pre-1975 Bee Gees, but even the “dance era” parts come across as hurried.
We do find some good elements, mainly when we hear from the Gibb brothers themselves. I often wish we only heard from them, as many of the other participants seem superfluous.
Actually, the use of Noel Gallagher adds intrigue, mainly because he shares the challenges of life in a band with siblings. However, most of the non-Gibb subjects feel lackluster.
In general, these folks just lather on praise for the Bee Gees. Not much insight results, and Mend wastes time on odd tangents with details about side musicians.
No offense to those folks, but Mend intends to offer a tale of the Brothers Gibb. Time spent with connected figures doesn’t fit the overall thesis, so these detours take away from time that needs to focus on the Gibbs.
I do like the segments that discuss the specifics of how the Bee Gees created specific songs, and some of the archival material offers appeal. We get tantalizing clips of a professionally shot 1979 concert that makes me wish it’d get its own Blu-ray release.
Unfortunately, Mend just feels too superficial and rushed to achieve its goals. While it comes with some positives, it would work better if it came as a much longer documentary.