Nowhere Boy

Overview

The words, "The Beatles" are never uttered in Sam Taylor-Wood's debut feature film Nowhere Boy, and, for the most part, neither are the screaming girls that the phrasing conjures. That's because the film focusses intensely on John Lennon's life aged fifteen-eighteen, an intimate portrait of a specific time period rather than the usual longwinded biopic. Aside from a few little wink-wink sight gags scattered throughout, Nowhere Boy could be the late adolescence of any boy growing up in Liverpool in the mid 1950s. Except of course, Taylor-Wood knows that we know he isn't.

Confronted with the death of the uncle that raised him alongside the starched Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas, perfectly buttoned up), fifteen year old Lennon (Aaron Johnson) is further thrown into confusion when his biological mother steps into the frame, at the cemetery no less. Anne-Marie Duff as Julia is more like an ebullient older sister, eager to welcome back Lennon into her rebuilt life, having abandoned him as a small child. She gently shoos her two daughters out of the way as she coos over John, fussing and â€" just a little â€" flirting. 'Rock'n'roll means sex', she teaches him, knocking him for six, as he begins to measure out his approach to life, and, more to the point, his music. There's an excellent scene showing them hearing and reacting to Screamin' Jay Hawkins I Put a Spell on You for the first time in Julia's lounge room, capturing the shock of the new and how something like a song at the right age can change everything.

The film is less about John Lennon and his budding musical talent, perhaps because Johnson feels a little out of place with his cheeky, quick banter, but moreso that it's the story of the two women who raised him, from within the interior of a family melodrama. The stark contrasts between Mimi and Julia, with their own clashing notions of both parenting and living, form the spine of the film. Both show up to see his new skiffle band play at a local fair, but though their intent of support is the same, they are unable to do so together. The reason for his abandonment as a small, crying child (shown occasionally in unnecessary flashbacks) is revealed at one point, sadly the least triumphant moment of the film.

Taylor-Wood, known predominantly as a photographer and video artist, in collaboration with screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh (he penned the Joy Division biopic, Control) has made a loving, intimate rendering of a snippet of a life. Beautifully shot, and with period perfect costuming ("it's my Buddy Holly look", says John to Paul McCartney, at one point), Nowhere Boy looks the part and feels genuine but not enough to linger, even if by the end of the film we understand that the boy is actually going somewhere.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Km9L1Sqd0