What's it with all those music biopics in the last years? First we got the Ray Charles movie Ray, then Johnny Cash flick Walk the Line, they even made one about Notorious B.I.G., simply called Notorious. Hell, there was even a spoof of the whole craze, Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story with John C. Reilly. So it was only a matter of time until there was one about legendary John Lennon (and if you don't know who that is, then go, feel embarrassed and google it), Nowhere Boy!
First off a warning: This film is not about the Beatles, it's not about Lennon's whole life, in a way it's not even really about the music behind the genius. It rather focuses on the family and especially mother issues Lennon had to deal with when he grew up. By taking this refreshingly different approach to the whole idea of biopics director Sam Taylor-Wood brings in a new perspective and tries to be different from other rather generic film biographies. But Lennon and Beatles fans might be a little disappointed as Nowhere Boy is not really delivering what one might expect. We have a pretty short time frame that's being covered and are essentially given a classical coming-of-age story, as it shows how Lennon discovered his passion for music, struggles with school and his family and ends with him starting his professional career.
It's an enjoyable movie nonetheless, the acting by Aaron Johnson who plays Lennon and especially Kristin Scott Thomas who plays his aunt is top-notch, the atmosphere of 50s Great Britain is captured really well and we get a nice soundtrack that's heavy on rock'n roll. Unfortunately the story itself is nothing too special. If you'd replace the main character's name with anything but John Lennon you'd only have another Sunday afternoon tea movie, there just doesn't seem to be much at stake here.
It's a nice watch but never really gets you to care very much about the whole subject, even the big emotional moments barely raise your heartbeat (besides one scene that comes out of nowhere and leaves you asking WTF?). An influential musician like John Lennon deserves better than that. So if you're a hardcore Lennon fan there's probably no way around Nowhere Boy, but everybody else can just skip this one without missing anything extraordinary.
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