Nowhere Boy Review
Saturday, January 23, 2010
, Posted by Should I See It at 8:45 PM
Film: Nowhere Boy
Director: Sam Taylor-Wood
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Anne-Marie Duff, Kristin Scott-Thomas
Plot: Follows a teenage John Lennon as he negotiates his relationships wih the Aunt who raised him (Kristin Scott-Thomas) and the mother who abandoned him (Anne-Marie Duff) and how he turned to music to negotiate that rocky path.
Let me preface this review by saying what I know about The Beatles. I know there were four of them: John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr (I even know their last names!). I know they were the biggest thing since sliced bread in the sixties ('bigger than Jesus', some would say). I know they gave the world some of the greatest songs ever. I know Paul married Linda, and she was the love of his life, but died of cancer than married and divorced Heather Mills. I also know, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, Yoko Ono is 'unoffically' credited as breaking up the band.
So I dont know a lot about The Beatles, but I know enough to get the jokes about a young John Lennon wanting to be famous like Elvis. I know that I have to smile smugly when John is introduced to Paul (Thomas Brodie Sangster) and George (Sam Bell). But actually, The Beatles aren't really important in Nowhere Boy. Paul and George aren't even credited with last names (I actually don't think they are even mentioned) because who they end up being is not important to this story. It doesn't mater that they become one of the greatest rock and roll groups ever. Even to say that the film is about John Lennon's relationships with his mother and aunt is to say too much. What the film is in its essence, is a teenage boy being able to recognise, accept and return the love of the aunt who raised him.
I'm still deciding on how I feel about nineteen year old Aaron Johnson's performance as John Lennon. He seems to settle into it as the film goes along. Or maybe I'm confusing his performance with my own personal response to his character. John really is incredibly dislikable: he spends a lot of the film behaving, as Paul puts it, "like a dick". But then there are moments you realise that he's just a kid dealing with stuff that he shouldn't have to. For me, what really saved him, was how the film presented his friendship with Paul. As Paul, Thomas Brodie Sangster (the froggy kid from Love Actually) is thankfuilly more engaging in this than he was wandering around in Bright Star.
There is something compelling about the unlikely friendship between the James Dean wannabe and the quiet gangly kid that just loves music. And at least in this narrative (I don't know how acurately it reflects real life) but it seems the thing that really saved John from going over the edge was not music, but his friendship with Paul. Both boys are coping with absent mothers (Paul's mother is dead), that is what they connect over, but ot what sustans them. Paul seems to know John better than John knows himself. And John's reactions to the momens when Paul tells him what he needs (but sometime doesnt want) to hear makes him interesting.
Anne-Marie Duff is actually quite wonderful as mother Julia. But it is Kristin Scott -Thomas' immaculate performance as Aunt Mimi that elevates the film into something better than it should be. At one point in the film, John decides to stay with Julia instead of going home with Mimi. The following scene shows Mimi, lying awake in bed looking at the clock, wih one tear out of the corner of her eye, that is only captured by the light when she turns her head. That moment tells us exactly how much she loves the nephew that she raised as a son.
There's no doubt that the film is engrossing: there were audible gasps in the audience when Aunt Mimi tells John she has sold his guitar. Indeed the two women do a sort of dance as to who is the 'bad guy': Mimi, because she finds it difficult to show love, or Julia, who shows her love but cannot control it. But in the end, it is John who is his own worst enemy.
The only note that feels false is Mimi's monologue (complete with flashacks) about how John came to be in her care. It feels a little melodramatic, and only someone as talented as Scott-Thomas can pull it off.
Once again I am going to complain about the use of Post Scripts at the end of the film. If this was not a biopic they wouldn't have them, so why do the filmakers feel the need to tell us that "John called Mimi when he arrived in Germany. And every week for the rest of his life." Of course he did! The film just spent two hours developing these characters and their relationship to that point. We don't need to be told that, their final scene together SHOWED that. I guess I should be grateful that they didn't say something ludicrous as "John, Paul and George went off to Germany, and began what would become the greatest Rock 'n Roll band in the world."
I came out of the film thinking that John Lennon had a really screwed up youth. Maybe that's why he was so successful. In order to be trully great, you have to know the bottom in order to get to the top.
Should I See It?
Be warned, it's no walk in the park, don't expect light entertainment, but it is rewarding if you have the patience for it.
