Has anyone else seen ‘Nowhere Boy’? It tells the story of John Lennon’s early life being raised by his Aunt and Uncle, his love of Rock & Roll and forming his first band. Kristin Scott Thomas is great as his Aunt Mimi and Aaron Johnson is remarkable as John. After seeing the film I looked up his IMDB profile and saw that Johnson had also played the title roll in ‘Kick-Ass’ - I totally didn’t recognize him. Johnson and Thomas Brodie Sangster (Paul McCartney) apparently did their own singing in the film.
I enjoyed it very much, even if as a long time Beatle fan I was already familiar with Lennon’s life story.
We saw it this week. I liked it. Wouldn’t say it was great, but they did a good job and it was an interesting perspective into that facet of the Beatles’ germination.
Some random observations:
A few years ago I saw a show on TV that covered some of the same timeframe on John Lennon. It showed John springing his skiffle band debut on Mimi as a surprise and her being upset about it, quite different from how it was depicted here.
I just read somewhere that Paul objected to how Mimi was originally depicted as being too mean. The producer and/or director revised the role in response. Paul declined to attend the opening.
The scene with John and Marie going off for a “chat” which consisted of him fingering her reminded me of the line “four of fish and finger pies” from Penny Lane, a finger pie being just what was shown.
You probably need to be a Beatles/Lennon fan to enjoy this one. I tried watching it once being completely unfamiliar with the plot, and a lot of it was rather boring or confusing to me. The production felt kind of cheap and uncreative too, more like TV than a proper movie.
I’ll agree with this. Another complaint is the actor they got to play the young Paul McCartney looks like this. I don’t know why, but I can’t stand the look of that kid; he looks nothing like the real Paul at that age. He’s also kind of a pompous little snit in the movie, and he just wasn’t believable as McCartney. If you’re a John Lennon fan, you’ll probably like the movie, but the production value and overall writing aren’t the best.
I keep an eye on stuff like this and really enjoyed Backbeat with Ian Hart as Lennon, but I have heard pretty bad reviews of this movie so haven’t rushed to see it. I enjoyed Aaron Johnson in Kick-Ass but heard he is only so-so as a young Lennon…
I thought McCartney looked an awful lot younger than Lennon in the film (in real life Paul was 20 months younger) and assumed they’d cast someone especially young to emphasize the age difference. It turns out Sangster is actually a month older than Johnson!
I saw it in the theater several months ago and liked it. It may not be Oscar material or anything, but it was interesting and Lennon’s mom’s mental illness was moving to me. It’s 80% at Rotten Tomatoes, so the reviews aren’t all bad.
faithfool, Aaron Johnson did a very good job. You’ll like him in it.
