Nowhere Boy (Film Review)
I know I said I'd move on to other subjects, but if there is a dvd in the post, and it makes such a great compare-contrast with the recent Lennon Naked, what can you do?
Both films pick a limited but critical period in their subject's lives, which in most cases strikes me as a wise choice, cinematically, because that way you can do more character exploration than the usual biopic format with its "highlights in the life of...." feeling allows. Both films focus on past and present family relationships plus a new partnership, both do the "Lennon reunites with missing parent early on, has searing emotional confrontation with parent in climactic scene" thing. But for all that Christopher Eccleston's performance is so brilliant, I feel Nowhere Boy is the better film. Not least, admittedly, because there is rather an overabundance of father/son stories, and not so many mother/son stories, let alone mother/other mother/son tales, and so I find the later far more interesting. Also because the director, Sam (a female Sam, btw) Taylor-Wood, got great performances out of her two female leads, Kristin Scott Thomas as Mimi and Anne-Marie Duff as Julia, whereas I feel Naoko Mori's undeniable talent was a bit wasted in Lennon Naked. Kristin Scott Thomas being awesome wasn't new, btw, but I had seen Anne-Marie Duff only once on stage before, as Joan in Shaw's St. Joan, where I had liked only half of her performance (the second half), so the fact she could more than hold her own next to Kristin Scott Thomas was a welcome suprise. I loved the character layers, neither woman being vilified or simplified; Mimi at first glance is all tight-lipped control, and Kristin Scott Thomas is ever so good at letting the deep emotions behind that facade slip through, and the film makes a great case for the Lennonian cutting sarcasm being a Mimi heritage, while Julia at first glance is all vivacious fun and expressive love, but Anne-Marie Duff also shows the brittleness and capacity for spectacular mood swings within; something that in her son simply is declared artistic temperament but in a woman in the 50s is frowned upon.
In the audio commentary, Sam Taylor-Wood is pretty open about having structured this as a love triangle, with Mimi in the wife and Julia in the mistress role. Father figures are notably absent, with Uncle George (with whom John had a great relationship) dying at the start of the film, Alf(red) Lennon only present in the inevitable Blackpool flashback and Julia's companion (they were never officially married, hence not "second husband") Bobby Dykins (played by David Morrissey, btw.) perceived and resented by John as a rival but only peripherally present as well. Because Mimi and Julia are sisters with their own bond, this is a triangle where nobody gets dumped, but you can see why one reviewer misquoted Larkin to declare "they fuck you up, your Mum and Aunt, they may not mean to, but they do" even before Julia has her fatal accident.
Aaron Johnson has only a slight physical resemblance to John Lennon (and the wrong eye colour), but he does a great job as a teenage work in progress, with the (good and bad) traits we associate with Lennon (and the physical mannerisms) emerging as the film goes on, rather than being there from the get go. In the audio commentary, Sam Taylor-Wood says that she made a decision early on for both John Lennon and Paul McCartney to go for acting rather than physical look-alikes, which definitely paid off; Johnson is very good, which you need to be when most of your scenes are with two actresses at the height of their powers, and you're decades younger. Thomas Sangster, aka the kid from Love Actually, has "only" a supporting part here as young Paul, but the way it's handled is another way I felt Nowhere Boy scores over Lennon Naked, because while the focus is firmly on the John-Julia-Mimi triangle, you can also see this other relationship developing, and quite why it's different from, say, the friendship John has with faithful sidekick Pete Shotton; the musical and personal challenge is there from the get go. (In the dvd features, scriptwriter Matt Greenalgh says the first meeting took him three weeks to write simply because that particular encounter a) is so well-known and b) has to establish the personal dynamic from the start. The result of his creative musings is online.) The script is also pretty good with working in necessary exposition in ways that doesn't feel clumsy, in this case that Paul's mother died a few months earlier which the audience needs to know in order to establish a later pay-off in a scene with Julia, but which isn't something a teenager would bring up with an older teenager he's trying to impress, so it's revealed in another way. Matt Greenalgh also seems to have fun with the verbal sparring, as in when John observes Paul doesn't come across the type for rock'n roll and young McCartney shoots back "you mean I don't act like a dick?"
It terms of biographical accuracy, the biggest liberty is probably writing the precise circumstances of how John came to live with Mimi as a revelation scene in the big emotional climax as the film whereas biographies give you the impression that most of the circumstances were familiar to John as a boy and the rest he pierced together, but such are the rules of drama. Also poor George Harrison gets only one line (and otherwise is only present playing silently guitar when the band performs) and as the film jumps directly from Julia's funeral to the epilogue which is a scene between John and Mimi just before the Beatles leave for Hamburg, during which there was a two years interludium in real life, Cynthia and Stuart Sutcliffe don't show up at all. But within the focus on John Lennon's teenage years, that feels like legitimate cutting of a big real life ensemble.
Musically, the film uses 50s rock, plus Maggie Mae (that old Liverpool ditty the Beatles recorded for old time's sake on Let it Be), plus John Lennon's Mother for the end credits, and two of the earliest Lennon/McCartney compositions, "Hello Little Girl" (later given to the Fouremost) and "In spite of all the danger" (not part of the Beatles catalogue, though there is a bootleg out there with the Quarrymen playing it). Since Yoko Ono has the rights for Mother and since Hello little girl is, as mentioned, not part of the Northern Songs Beatles package which means Paul McCartney and Yoko have the rights for that one, Sam Taylor-Wood had to get the agreement of both Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney and confessed to much nervousness when asking, because the use of those songs was essential to her, so she was very relieved when they responded positively (and Paul McCartney helped with some background info as to which kind of tape recorder they used to record their early songs). Something that didn't require song rights but was instantly recognizable as a musical allusion was the use of the opening cord from A Hard Day's Night for the first image of the film, which shows a running John Lennon; Sam Taylor-Wood says in the commentary watched A Hard Day's Night (Lester's film, that is) a lot during production, and using the opening cord was a last minute idea to pay homage to that.
The Liverpool location is used very well; "Liverpool needed to be a character in the film as well", Sam Taylor-Wood says, and it shows. She's especially proud for avoiding the "gloomy, colourless north" cliché. In conclusion, a film well worth-watching.
Both films pick a limited but critical period in their subject's lives, which in most cases strikes me as a wise choice, cinematically, because that way you can do more character exploration than the usual biopic format with its "highlights in the life of...." feeling allows. Both films focus on past and present family relationships plus a new partnership, both do the "Lennon reunites with missing parent early on, has searing emotional confrontation with parent in climactic scene" thing. But for all that Christopher Eccleston's performance is so brilliant, I feel Nowhere Boy is the better film. Not least, admittedly, because there is rather an overabundance of father/son stories, and not so many mother/son stories, let alone mother/other mother/son tales, and so I find the later far more interesting. Also because the director, Sam (a female Sam, btw) Taylor-Wood, got great performances out of her two female leads, Kristin Scott Thomas as Mimi and Anne-Marie Duff as Julia, whereas I feel Naoko Mori's undeniable talent was a bit wasted in Lennon Naked. Kristin Scott Thomas being awesome wasn't new, btw, but I had seen Anne-Marie Duff only once on stage before, as Joan in Shaw's St. Joan, where I had liked only half of her performance (the second half), so the fact she could more than hold her own next to Kristin Scott Thomas was a welcome suprise. I loved the character layers, neither woman being vilified or simplified; Mimi at first glance is all tight-lipped control, and Kristin Scott Thomas is ever so good at letting the deep emotions behind that facade slip through, and the film makes a great case for the Lennonian cutting sarcasm being a Mimi heritage, while Julia at first glance is all vivacious fun and expressive love, but Anne-Marie Duff also shows the brittleness and capacity for spectacular mood swings within; something that in her son simply is declared artistic temperament but in a woman in the 50s is frowned upon.
In the audio commentary, Sam Taylor-Wood is pretty open about having structured this as a love triangle, with Mimi in the wife and Julia in the mistress role. Father figures are notably absent, with Uncle George (with whom John had a great relationship) dying at the start of the film, Alf(red) Lennon only present in the inevitable Blackpool flashback and Julia's companion (they were never officially married, hence not "second husband") Bobby Dykins (played by David Morrissey, btw.) perceived and resented by John as a rival but only peripherally present as well. Because Mimi and Julia are sisters with their own bond, this is a triangle where nobody gets dumped, but you can see why one reviewer misquoted Larkin to declare "they fuck you up, your Mum and Aunt, they may not mean to, but they do" even before Julia has her fatal accident.
Aaron Johnson has only a slight physical resemblance to John Lennon (and the wrong eye colour), but he does a great job as a teenage work in progress, with the (good and bad) traits we associate with Lennon (and the physical mannerisms) emerging as the film goes on, rather than being there from the get go. In the audio commentary, Sam Taylor-Wood says that she made a decision early on for both John Lennon and Paul McCartney to go for acting rather than physical look-alikes, which definitely paid off; Johnson is very good, which you need to be when most of your scenes are with two actresses at the height of their powers, and you're decades younger. Thomas Sangster, aka the kid from Love Actually, has "only" a supporting part here as young Paul, but the way it's handled is another way I felt Nowhere Boy scores over Lennon Naked, because while the focus is firmly on the John-Julia-Mimi triangle, you can also see this other relationship developing, and quite why it's different from, say, the friendship John has with faithful sidekick Pete Shotton; the musical and personal challenge is there from the get go. (In the dvd features, scriptwriter Matt Greenalgh says the first meeting took him three weeks to write simply because that particular encounter a) is so well-known and b) has to establish the personal dynamic from the start. The result of his creative musings is online.) The script is also pretty good with working in necessary exposition in ways that doesn't feel clumsy, in this case that Paul's mother died a few months earlier which the audience needs to know in order to establish a later pay-off in a scene with Julia, but which isn't something a teenager would bring up with an older teenager he's trying to impress, so it's revealed in another way. Matt Greenalgh also seems to have fun with the verbal sparring, as in when John observes Paul doesn't come across the type for rock'n roll and young McCartney shoots back "you mean I don't act like a dick?"
It terms of biographical accuracy, the biggest liberty is probably writing the precise circumstances of how John came to live with Mimi as a revelation scene in the big emotional climax as the film whereas biographies give you the impression that most of the circumstances were familiar to John as a boy and the rest he pierced together, but such are the rules of drama. Also poor George Harrison gets only one line (and otherwise is only present playing silently guitar when the band performs) and as the film jumps directly from Julia's funeral to the epilogue which is a scene between John and Mimi just before the Beatles leave for Hamburg, during which there was a two years interludium in real life, Cynthia and Stuart Sutcliffe don't show up at all. But within the focus on John Lennon's teenage years, that feels like legitimate cutting of a big real life ensemble.
Musically, the film uses 50s rock, plus Maggie Mae (that old Liverpool ditty the Beatles recorded for old time's sake on Let it Be), plus John Lennon's Mother for the end credits, and two of the earliest Lennon/McCartney compositions, "Hello Little Girl" (later given to the Fouremost) and "In spite of all the danger" (not part of the Beatles catalogue, though there is a bootleg out there with the Quarrymen playing it). Since Yoko Ono has the rights for Mother and since Hello little girl is, as mentioned, not part of the Northern Songs Beatles package which means Paul McCartney and Yoko have the rights for that one, Sam Taylor-Wood had to get the agreement of both Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney and confessed to much nervousness when asking, because the use of those songs was essential to her, so she was very relieved when they responded positively (and Paul McCartney helped with some background info as to which kind of tape recorder they used to record their early songs). Something that didn't require song rights but was instantly recognizable as a musical allusion was the use of the opening cord from A Hard Day's Night for the first image of the film, which shows a running John Lennon; Sam Taylor-Wood says in the commentary watched A Hard Day's Night (Lester's film, that is) a lot during production, and using the opening cord was a last minute idea to pay homage to that.
The Liverpool location is used very well; "Liverpool needed to be a character in the film as well", Sam Taylor-Wood says, and it shows. She's especially proud for avoiding the "gloomy, colourless north" cliché. In conclusion, a film well worth-watching.