Described as the story of John Lennon’s childhood, Nowhere Boy touches on Lennon’s life in only one respect, his relationship to his Aunt Mimi and his mother, whom he hasn’t seen since the age of five. Scene after redundant scene, this film beats the relationship of these three individuals into the ground to the point it’s no longer interesting, but rather obsessively irritating. If you were hoping for an origin story of The Beatles you may as well look elsewhere as this film is unwilling to even say the name of the iconic rock band.
Playing Lennon is Aaron Johnson for whom I can’t muster any interest when seeing him in such a role. Johnson appealed to me as the loser-turned-vigilante in Kick-Ass — he fit that role — but here he’s clearly acting cool rather than is cool. This isn’t an assessment of Johnson’s social status, but rather his ability to play such a character. He can’t.
Nevertheless, we watch as Nowhere Boy paints Lennon as a troubled school boy who finds a love for music thanks to his friend searching out and finding his mother (Anne-Marie Duff) who just so happened to live in a nearby neighborhood. At the time John was devastated at losing his uncle due to a sudden heart attack and in his state of shock the loving arms of the mother who abandoned him were welcome arms.
Lennon bounces between the carefree life his mother inspires (not to mention a bit creepy from an inappropriately sexual perspective) and the stern rule he’s lived under most of his life at his Aunt Mimi’s place. The film skirts around a dark secret from Lennon’s past that has him living with his aunt all these years and the story tumbles along until the climactic reveal with only a few minutes left in the 98 minute running time. Not knowing how long the film was (and it felt really long), it was at this point I assumed the story was going to actually go somewhere, but instead it turns down a street I never would have expected and becomes an all out train wreck unwilling to move along. It was at that point I threw my arms up in disgust and prayed there wasn’t much left.
I understand when telling a true story you’ve got to stick to the facts, but the first 85 minutes of this movie could have been boiled down to the first 30 minutes, which could have then moved on to bigger, better and more interesting things. Instead, Matt Greenhalgh (who surprisingly enough also wrote Anton Corbijn’s excellent debut, Control, centering on Joy Division front man Ian Curtis) seems determined to make sure we understand this wasn’t an ideal family dynamic. Yeah Matt, we get it. You’ve pretty much spelled it out on the screen over the course of 15 scenes in a row that all pretty much say the exact same thing. Move along.
Perhaps the blame should fall on the shoulders of director Sam Taylor-Wood with what is her first feature film, but something tells me this script just never had the guts to support a feature film. Wood, in fact, does just fine with what she has to work with and the same goes for Kristin Scott Thomas who plays Mimi and Duff as Lennon’s biological mother Julia. Unfortunately the dialogue, as delivered here, is so formulaic their performances seem stuck in a box with only the tiniest of air holes allowing for breathing room.
The film’s climactic scene comes across as each new revelation is supposed to be received by the audience as a series of punches to the chest, but instead it sounds like an elaborate pitch meeting where the final product is supposed to deliver real emotion rather than just words. And I swear, Johnson must aggressively open and close a hundred doors throughout this film. If he isn’t swinging open the front gate to his aunt’s house with two hands, he’s twirling his leather jacket in the air as he hustles out the back door in a rage. You could set up an entire drinking game around Johnson’s overacting and you’d be floored by the 45-minute mark.
As I mentioned, the formation of The Beatles is an afterthought here. Aside from a few stink eye glances in Paul McCartney’s direction from Lennon, who is portrayed to have something of a jealous side, the story doesn’t care too much for the band. As a result, I didn’t care either, with my only concern being a brain search for the name of the actor playing McCartney. Knowing I knew who he was, I eventually got arrived home and learned it was Thomas Sangster, better known as the little boy in Love Actually. Doh!
I was intrigued when Nowhere Boy began, dumbfounded midway through and irritated by the time it was over. This film has no reason being 98 minutes long, there simply isn’t enough material to sustain it. It’s fine if Wood and Greenhalgh didn’t want to deal with the Beatles years, but they should have at least come prepared with enough story to tell everything leading up to them.
