Nowhere Boy

A feel-good story about the young John Lennon, Nowhere Boy wobbles between being a poignant biopic and a suburban family drama that, really, could be about anyone.

Set in Liverpool, we meet Lennon when he's still a school-uniformed, rebellious teenager, before he knows how to play a single musical instrument.

Upon discovering that his estranged mother has been living around the corner from him his whole life, while his frosty aunt raised him in her stable, but sterile, home, Lennon spends the rest of the film ping-ponging between his battling matriarchs and the girls at school who worship his fledgling rock star status, soaking up as much love and attention as he can, while trying to learn how to play guitar and do his hair just right so he can be more like his hero Elvis.

The handsome Aaron Johnson projects just the right mix of clumsy teen masculinity and sparkly-eyed dreaming that makes sense in a young Lennon. But the powerhouse performance, without a doubt, comes from Kristin Scott-Thomas, who has the difficult task of playing Lennon's Aunt Mimi, an uptight ice queen in the midst of a story that worships rock'n'roll in all of its most visceral forms (in contrast, Anne-Marie Duff is forgettable as Lennon's free-spirited, wounded-fawn-type mother).

Occasionally the audience is flashed knowing signs of things to come, like Lennon cycling past Strawberry Field, or doodling pictures of a walrus in his notebook.  And of course, we witness the legendary meeting with Paul, who is played by the adorable (and almost grown up) Thomas Sangster. But otherwise, the film stays in the quiet, green Liverpool, well before the noise of the sixties will change Lennon's life...along with much of the Western world. In that sense, this film is not about glorifying the rock'n'roll star, but rather, celebrating the everyday human experience that helped shape the kind of rock star he became.