Tbh when I saw Backbeat I always kinda got the impression that John's attraction to Astrid was more something he was trying to convince himself of to deflect from his feelings for Stu, and that she saw through it.
I watched the movie more than two years ago so I might be misremembering, but I think it was towards the end when John tells Astrid he wished he could have had her and the scene is framed as emotional closure for him that I stopped feeling like I could give the the movie the benefit of the doubt.
It would've been so cool if the story really felt (to me) like it was about misdirected jealousy – the script was maybe even going for that (my recollection is that John is never actually shown to be attracted to Astrid, we're just told this, but this dissonance remains fully unaddressed) but the movie itself mostly left me with the impression of wanting to have it both ways and not dealing with either really.
I do think it's very interesting to observe that the two Beatles biopics which address John's attraction to men in some way (Backbeat and The Hours and Times) are from the early 90s: post-Goldman iconoclasm and pre-Anthology 'cleanup'.
