Nowhere Boy

Year: 2009
Genre: Drama
Directed: Sam Taylor-Johnson
Stars: Aaron Taylor-Johson, Kristin Scott Thomas, David Threlfall, Josh Bolt, Ophelia Lovibond, Kerrie Hayes, Anne-Marie Duff, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, James Michael, David Morrissey
Production:

What makes for a good biographical epic anyway? Since watching movies is a visceral experience I'd like to think the best movies based on real events like Gandhi (1982) and Amadeus (1984) keep the spirit of the person or event intact. Small embellishments or endearing character traits can sometimes add to the story so long as they don't go overboard. Anyone remember Patch Adams (1998)? How about Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)? Two stories certainly worth telling that were dragged in the muck because of one too many tall tales.

This freakin' movie...

Well, I didn't think it was possible but it seems it can work the other way around too. You can have too little embellishment, too little false characterizations and too little drama. Thus was the case of the 2009's look at John Lennon's adolescents Nowhere Boy. Now anyone who knows me knows I'm a pretty big admirer of The Beatles. Not big enough to own all their albums on vinyl but big enough to actually know which album is which. You could say in comparison to others in my generation who have never actually seen them live, I'm a fan. I say all this to put my opinion of Nowhere Boy in a context. You may be a bigger fan than I and loved the film in which case bully for you. I however found it dull.

John Lennon's early adolescence consisted of a broken household and a lost identity. Living with close relatives for most of his life, the young John meets his birth mother only after the death of his uncle. His aunt, of course is not a fan of them gallivanting around Liverpool when he should be doing his homework. Nor is she a fan of John starting a band with schoolmates for that matter. Things however reach their climax when John begins to put the puzzle together and confronts his mother with complex questions like "why did you leave me?" "who is my father?" and "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?"

Its all pretty heavy and if it were anyone else, the story and its resolution would have worked, but this is John f*****g Lennon! Seeing him breaking a washboard over a friends head in a drunken rage or wagging his bits at school girls make him look like a particularly maladjusted teenager not the symbol of love, peace and awesomeness I've pictured. I'm not saying he wasn't a total jerk in grade school, he likely was, but why is his broken home worth the biographic treatment? If anything it should consist of a very small part of a hero worshiping epic starring Michael Sheen and directed by James Manigold. Not the whole subject of a movie about a poor boy with an Oedipus complex starring the kid from Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008).

Final Grade: D