NOWHERE BOY : [7/10] : Sam Taylor-Wood : UK 09 : 98m : {18/28}

Published on: December 31st, 2009

Deluxe soap-opera recounting the troubled early years of John Lennon. As the budding genius, Aaron Johnson isn't much of a facial match, and looks significantly too old, too big, too coltishly movie-star/rock-star handsome for the role, though he does successfully communicate the three "S's" that are key to the teenage Lennon's character: (Scouse) sarcasm, swagger, sensitivity.
   Even better is Kristin Scott Thomas's superbly-modulated performance as Lennon's hyper-strict Aunt Mimi, with whom he lived from the age of five. The reasons why he wasn't brought up by his mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff) form the emotional core of the story, and are finally laid bare in a full-blooded scene in which long-simmering sisterly rancours are given full vent.
   One disturbing element that's never really resolved, however, is the way Julia – who we gather was less than mentally stable – often behaves more like a besotted lover than a parent when she's with her son. Crucial to this is the barely-concealed resentment of her boyfriend Bobby – conveyed in a series of magnificiently pissed-off glares by an underused David Morrissey.
   It's a conspicuously fine-looking picture, courtesy of Seamus McGarvey's cinematography, while Alice Normington's production-design's attention to period detail is unintrusive and flawless – a welcome contrast to so many current and recent British pictures which cut corners with unfortunate results – though there is one brief scene which features several several anachronistic elements (a ferry, a bench, a pint-glass).
   But anyone expecting acclaimed artist Sam Taylor-Wood's first foray into feature-filmmaking to be edgily experimental a la Steve McQueen's Hunger is in for a disappointment. Apart from a small handful of flashy flourishes, the awkwardly-titled Nowhere Boy is squarely mainstream in its approach – even the score by Alison Goldfrapp (or rather 'Alison Goldfrap' as she's sloppily billed in the end credits) and Will Gregory is surprisingly conventional.
   We're also some way from the minor-masterpiece status of Control, the only other film so far written by Matt Greenhalgh. Like Control, this is a 20th-century biopic of a prominent popular-music writer/performer, who died prematurely and under violent circumstances, set in a city in the north west of England and based on a first-hand memoir written by a woman: here the main source is a book by Julia Baird, Lennon's half-sister (who's a small child during the period the film takes place.) 
   But whereas Control was an emotionally shattering experience haunted with an air of genuine tragedy, Nowhere Boy is more of a page-turning "misery memoir" faithfully recounting an intriguing real-life story – one bookended with out-of-the-blue deaths – in quite involving, occasionally moving fashion. No more; no less.

Neil Young
31st December, 2009

 ¦ Empire cinema, Newcastle, UK, 30.Dec.09 ( £5.95)  ¦