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NOWHERE BOY (2010) (***1/2)

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Director Sam Taylor-Wood isn’t afraid to tackle an iconic tale for her first feature film. Working from Matt Greenhalgh’s adaptation of Julia Baird’s memoir, the film tells the originals of The Beatles. For many fans it would sacrilegious to mess up this story. Taylor-Wood takes a classical straight-forward biopic approach, which benefits from a great cast, which includes a standout performance from KICK-ASS’ Aaron Johnson as John Lennon.

Baird was John’s sister, so the story is told from his point of view. As a young boy he went to live with his aunt and uncle. Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas, THE ENGLISH PATIENT) was the straight-upper-lipped task master, while his uncle George (David Threlfall, HOT FUZZ) was a jokester and a drinker. When his beloved uncle died, John was heartbroken and sought out his mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff, THE MAGDALENE SISTERS), who had remarried and had two daughters.

His mother is a carefree spirit, who loves rock ‘n roll. The more he spends time with her the more rebellious he gets. Mimi tries to keep him disciplined with school, but Julia has taught him the banjo, which was just the start of his obsession with music. With his friends, he forms The Quarrymen. At a concert, Paul McCartney (Thomas Brodie-Sangster, LOVE ACTUALLY) introduces himself. John and his friends were quick to dismiss the straight-laced looking 15-year-old, until they heard him play. Later Paul would bring in George Harrison (Sam Bell). And the rest was history as they say.

The film starts out quite pedestrian as it develops the dynamics between John, Mimi and Julia. If this is the last generic bonding scene at a carnival I ever see, I’d be thankful. But once the story settles into John’s move into music, the film takes off. The introduction of Paul helps a great deal, because it highlights many of the subtle things the story was establishing earlier without realizing what they were doing. The film argues that John got inside rock ‘n roll for the image, while Paul came to it for the music.

In its mother-son love triangle, the film takes on its most unique quality. John resents Mimi’s stiff views and finds comfort in his mother’s spirit. Mimi represents everything he’s trying to rebel against. But he’ll find that his real mother isn’t perfect. The relationship between them all is complex and changes over time. By the end, we see how both women shaped who he became.

Johnson, who is best known as teen superhero (punching bag) Kick-Ass, is remarkable as Lennon. It’s difficult to play such a well known person without making a caricature of them. Johnson gets all of Lennon’s mannerisms and weaves them into a natural performance.

At first I wondered whether I would like this film if I didn’t know who this nowhere boy ended up becoming and doubted it. But by the end I didn’t care that it was about John Lennon. This biopic works as a character study about a young man coming into his own and coming to terms with where he came from. The story builds simply to more complex and emotionally powerful scenes. Rock ‘n roll allowed John from becoming a nowhere man… even if his Aunt Mimi feared it would.

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Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
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