Nowhere Boy

There have been no shortage of films about the proto-Beatles. There was the 1994 film Backbeat, and a 1979 TV film called Birth of the Beatles. Both of those films dealt with the interpersonal squabbles of the nascent group, with much of the focus on men who would not become "Beatles" (Stu Sutcliffe and Pete Best). Nowhere Boy, the debut film from Sam Taylor-Wood, goes deeper into the mists of Beatle history, giving us a few key years in the development of John Lennon.

Lennon was haunted by the relationship, or lack of one, with his mother, a good-time girl. He was raised by his Aunt Mimi, a strict woman. His father was a seaman who was long gone by the time Lennon was an adolescent, and this theme of abandonment crept into his music. The songs "Julia" and "Mother" are a couple of examples of this hole in his life being reflected in his music.

Nowhere Boy takes this story and turns it into a pretty good film. However, it must be pointed out that I come at this film as a Beatle fanatic, and some context is necessary to fully enjoy it. If you've never seen A Hard Day's Night, for example, you'll miss the homage to that film in the opening scene of Nowhere Boy. It could also be said that if this film weren't about John Lennon, it would just be an ordinary kitchen-sink drama.

The film covers Lennon (played by Aaron Johnson) from the age of fifteen, when his beloved uncle dies, to eighteen, when he's ready to depart with the band for Hamburg (at that point they are The Quarrymen--the word "Beatle" is never uttered in this film). Along the way Lennon reconnects with his mother Julia (Ann-Marie Duff), who he is surprised to learn lives only a few blocks away. She treats him like a sweetheart, enjoying a day at Blackpool where they could be mistaken for a couple. He is viewed with suspicion and annoyance by his mother's live-in boyfriend, with whom she has two daughters (as much as I know about the Beatles, I never knew he had half-sisters). Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas), who though severe, dearly loves the lad, and Julia engage in something of a war for his affection. But even though two women are fighting for him, Lennon still feels basically unloved.

There are number of things pleasing to Beatlemaniacs. We see a quick glimpse of Strawberry Field, the word "walrus" written in John's notebook, and the sight of him being turned away at The Cavern club. I'll also never listen to the song "Maggie May," which is almost a throwaway on Let It Be, the same way again. But there's little to top the frisson of that fateful moment at a church fair when the words, "John, this is Paul," were spoken, followed by a handshake that would change the world.

Paul, played by the youthful Thomas Brodie Sangster (after all, Paul was only fifteen when he met John) was the more musical of the two, and had lost his mother to cancer. He suggests that they write their own music, and there's a lovely scene in which he listens to John sing "Hey Little Girl," the first song he would ever write (it's the only Lennon-McCartney composition in the film). The moment when George shows if his guitar-playing skill for John on a bus, earning his spot in the band, is less propitious, but then George always did short shrift.

The best part of the film is toward the end, when John and Paul, two motherless boys, embrace and console each on the street. By this time the emotional journey that John has undertaken has created the man he would become (and, to the credit of screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh, John is presented as the prickly and oftentimes difficult man he was). Johnson looks the part and does a great job of capturing the rebelliousness of the young Lennon, who has trouble in school and nicks 45s from the record shop. When he and his friends are influenced by Elvis, and start wearing blue jeans and pompadours, he really looks like John.

Thomas is also quite effective, playing the emotional anchor of the film. A scene in which she and Duff have a showdown over John, with a flashback to when Thomas first takes him into her care, is excessively melodramatic. Better are the subtler scenes, which vividly evoke England of the late 50s, when it seems that every British boy was listening to American rock and roll records and dreaming of stardom.

My grade for Nowhere Boy: B+