Henry Saw: Nowhere Boy

If this wasn't about John Lennon...no one would care


This is not, strictly speaking, a musical biopic in the vein of Ray or Walk the Line. Nowhere Boy does not try to tell the entire tale of John Lennon's life. It is sort of the Batman Begins for John Lennon, his origin story, following his teenage years in Liverpool. The movie centers around Lennon's relationship with the aunt who raised him, his estranged mother with whom he tries to reconnect, and his early band-mates (including a young Paul McCartney).

In Nowhere Boy we learn that Lennon, from around the age of five years old, was raised by his mother's sister. The exact reasons behind this are only revealed towards the end, so I won't spoil them for you, but most of the film is actually about him trying to form a relationship with the mother who abandoned him. John's aunt is played with stoic decency by the always great Kristin Scott-Thomas. His mother, played Anne-Marie Duff, who gives a slightly less successful performance. To be fair, the role of Julia Lennon is much more difficult, but that is partially due to the part being underwritten. Duff is asked to play flirty, fun-loving, damaged, adoring, angry...it's too much for Duff to pull off sadly.



Lennon himself is played by Aaron Johnson, and just like his last starring role in Kick-Ass, he is the least interesting character in the movie. His attempt at mimicking John Lennon's famous voice varies in success from scene to scene, his devil-may-care attitude throughout the film always felt forced, and he fails to sell all the dramatic beats. His singing is also suspect, with only an acoustic version of "Hello Little Girl", the first song written by John Lennon, resonating at all.



The scenes with Lennon and his Quarry Men, the band he founded before the Beatles, are not as fun as they should be. The music choices, though accurate for the time and the characters, are all rather trite and their performances are hardly noteworthy. The only standout in these sequences is Thomas Sangster as Paul McCartney. Sangster is best known for his roles in Love Actually and Bright Star and is fantastic in an under-written part. Clearly cast more for his talent than his resemblance to a young McCartney, Sangster nails each musical performance, and then out-acts Aaron Johnson in a pivotal moment for John Lennon's character. Sangster is the most impressive thing in the movie.

The whole movie just does not work dramatically. If you did not know it was about John Lennon you would not care about the central character at all. Last year's An Education was about a young English girl coming of age, at around the same time as John Lennon was, but that film made you care about the central, fictional, character. Director Sam Taylor Wood and writer Matt Greenhalgh relied on our interest in the real John Lennon to maintain our interest in their cinematic version.



Nowhere Boy serves as a nice reminder of just how young Lennon and McCartney were when they met and began the most famous partnership in rock and roll history. It reveals the interesting circumstances of his upbringing, and the music that he grew to love, which both influenced him throughout his career. Unfortunately, the movie just doesn't really work as a whole. Aaron Johnson is just not a compelling lead, the music scenes are just a little too trite, and despite being about one of the biggest, and most beloved, rock stars of all time...it just never gives you a reason to care.

Grade: C

Best Scene: When John punches Paul...