Taylor-Wood has specialized in video installations and off-kilter portraits, and it was tempting to hope that her take on Lennon would unsettle and provoke. Instead, she stays resolutely on-kilter, as if awed into numbness by her subject.
Nowhere Boy
As a boy all John Lennon needed was love.
2009 · 1h 38m · R
Drama
Directed by
Sam Taylor-Johnson
Overview
A rebellious teenager, future Beatle John Lennon lives with his Aunt Mimi in working-class mid-1950s Liverpool, England. Mimi's husband suddenly dies, and John spies his mother Julia at the funeral. Despite Mimi's misgivings, John intends to have a real relationship with his mother. Julia introduces him to popular music and the banjo and, though a family conflict looms, young John is inspired to form his own band.
Director and cast
- Sam Taylor-Johnson Director
- Aaron Taylor-Johnson as John Lennon
- Anne-Marie Duff as Julia Lennon
- Kristin Scott Thomas as Mimi Smith
- David Threlfall as George Toogood Smith
- David Morrissey as Bobby Dykins
- Kerrie Hayes as Corrine
- Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Paul McCartney
- Josh Bolt as Pete Shotton
- Ophelia Lovibond as Maria Kennedy
- Andrew Buchan as Michael Fishwick
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
The events chronicled are all longstanding Beatles legends, though director Sam Taylor-Wood manages to stage even the most portentous moments without making you feel a celestial choir is in order.
More love triangle than musical, the effective and often sweet Nowhere Boy offers a sense of the time and tension that produced John Lennon.
This portrait of a Beatle as a young man also gives filmmaker Sam Taylor-Wood, working on a thoughtful script by Matt Greenhalgh, creative room to manoeuvre, introducing us to John just as he and rock 'n' roll discover one another.
Nowhere Boy is a poignant reminder that before the world was at his command, John Lennon was a bit like you and me.
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