Nowhere Boy

Lennon did indeed have a complex and difficult adolescence, clarified by his half-sister’s recent book and certainly rich food for filmmakers. His parents’ marriage broke up when his mother became pregnant by another man when his father was off on military service, so at five years old his father tried to abduct him to New Zealand. Asked to choose, this small boy picked his daddy, but then ran after his mother and ended up staying in England. His aunt Mimi then took him into her care, leading to a weird situation in which he was barely allowed to see his birth-mother and yet found there rebellious reprieve from his stifling middle-classed life.

This film exaggerates and heightens the drama, as can be expected. John starts visiting his mother’s home at 15 rather than 11 and their relationship is portrayed as oddly eroticised. In fact, the film seems to try to conjure up some sexual tension between just about everyone in it, apart from the one that WAS the real-life shocker (Mimi and her student lodger). There are very strong performances from the boy playing Lennon and Kristen Scott-Thomas does an excellent job of bringing out the warmth and humour lurking beneath the surface of her stiff character, and I must say it was cute knowing Thomas Sangster had worked very hard on getting his Liverpool accent right and even studying to play the guitar left-handed for only a few minutes of screen-time. On the other hand, the pacing is slow and arguments and revelations do seem to be wringed for every drop of drama, and it stopped just as it was about to get interesting. That said, the grimness of the setting and the undeniably fascinating family drama made for compelling viewing and sympathetic, rich characters.