According to John Lennon's cousin, Leila Harvey, during the time she knew him (when he was between the ages of 9 and 16), he was a "happy-go-lucky, good-humored, easy going, lively lad." But looking at 'Nowhere Boy', the film that is supposed to accurately chronicle the coming of age years of John Lennon, you would be more likely to get the impression that he was a troubled and angst-ridden adolescent who was hardly the "happy-go-lucky" kid who eventually became the co-leader of the greatest rock band of the 20th century. And that is the problem with 'Nowhere Boy'--it simply fails to answer why John Lennon was charismatic, even in his unformed early days.
He was charismatic because he WAS quick, witty, iconoclastic and wickedly humorous, all IN SPITE of his difficult childhood. He was the type of person, I believe, who never dwelt on the past and probably would have dismissed 'Nowhere Boy' as tendentious nonsense. A few months before his death, Lennon spoke about his upbringing and he praised his mother and all of his aunts. There is not a hint of anger or bitterness which "Nowhere Boy" implies consumed him while growing up: "There were five women who were my family. Five strong, intelligent women. Five sisters. Those women were fantastic ... that was my first feminist education ... One happened to be my mother ... she just couldn't deal with life. She had a husband who ran away to sea and the war was on and she couldn't cope with me, and when I was four-and-a-half, I ended up living with her elder sister ... the fact that I wasn't with my parents made me see that parents are not gods."
Yoko Ono saw 'Nowhere Boy' twice and loved it. This is the same person who promoted "Imagine", the failed musical about John Lennon which put him up on a pedestal. 'Nowhere Boy' is a different kind of hagiography than the saintly John Lennon served up in the "Imagine' musical. Both portraits can be likened to two different views of Christ-like figures: the saintly Lennon is like the wandering miracle maker dressed in a white robe, healing those afflicted with a malaise of the spirit; the "Nowhere Boy' Lennon is one who undergoes a sort of spiritual crucifixion, enduring the slings and arrows of a torturous childhood and adolescence, emerging cleansed of all his trials and tribulations through a catharsis.
It's understandable that Yoko would hold on to both these idealized images of her slain husband. However, Paul McCartney, who actually remembers everything about growing up in Liverpool at that time, will have none of it. It's said that McCartney strongly objected to the scene where John punches him after his mother's funeral and asked Director Sam Taylor-Wood (who he supposedly was friends with) to take the scene out. Taylor-Wood refused and told him in substance, "it's just a movie". McCartney knows that Lennon would never have punched him because that would imply that Lennon allowed the bitterness of his upbringing to affect him. The film's scenarists would like us to believe that the climactic scene where he assaults McCartney, is where he exorcises his demons and achieves his catharsis (recall that he hugs McCartney afterward and apologizes). It's all cheap melodrama which never happened and the type of made up incident which Lennon would have also rejected had he been around to see the movie.
While 'Nowhere Boy' does a decent job of fleshing out the relationship between John's mother Julia and the aunt who raised him, Mimi, the more interesting story is the relationship John had with Paul as well as George and the peers he grew up with. All the key moments are covered in 'Nowhere Boy' including: the famous scene where John rides on the top of the bus, the first meeting with McCartney, the Quarrymen's first gig, a sexual encounter with a schoolmate, trouble at school, buying his first guitar—but it all seems like a glimpse at picture postcards. None of the relationships are developed, especially the most important one between Lennon and McCartney. And the real drama, of course, is not the dragged out familial problems, but how the Beatles actually came to be. To make that film, one would have had to have the rights to the Beatles catalog, a problem which the creators of 'Backbeat', the 1994 film about the Beatles Hamburg days, were also unable to overcome.
Perhaps the strongest aspect of 'Nowhere Boy' are the performances of Kristin Scott Thomas as Mimi and Anne-Marie Duff as Julia. Thomas is thoroughly convincing as the 'tough love' substitute parent playing opposite the troubled Bohemian of sorts, Julia. You can see how both women influenced Lennon's personality—he inherited Mimi's discipline and Julia's creativity and rebelliousness. Aaron Johnson manages to capture little of Lennon's great wit and humor, but is saddled by the ponderous script. The make-up department should be commended for making Johnson look like Lennon, especially once he adopts the Elvis pompadour. Thomas Brodie-Sangster takes a shot at Paul but doesn't look enough like the 'handsome' Beatle to be convincing. The actor who plays George looks nothing at all like him and the part is woefully underdeveloped.
We're informed by a prominent Beatles historian that 'Nowhere Boy' is the first film that covers John Lennon's early years including his upbringing and creation of the Beatles. While it does cover most of the bases, and does a decent job of defining the characters of Lennon's mother and aunt, Lennon himself comes off as a bit pathetic. Putting it another way—he's a character that all the joy has been sucked out of –and his angst-ridden replacement seems far from the flesh and blood rock icon, revered by millions.
He was charismatic because he WAS quick, witty, iconoclastic and wickedly humorous, all IN SPITE of his difficult childhood. He was the type of person, I believe, who never dwelt on the past and probably would have dismissed 'Nowhere Boy' as tendentious nonsense. A few months before his death, Lennon spoke about his upbringing and he praised his mother and all of his aunts. There is not a hint of anger or bitterness which "Nowhere Boy" implies consumed him while growing up: "There were five women who were my family. Five strong, intelligent women. Five sisters. Those women were fantastic ... that was my first feminist education ... One happened to be my mother ... she just couldn't deal with life. She had a husband who ran away to sea and the war was on and she couldn't cope with me, and when I was four-and-a-half, I ended up living with her elder sister ... the fact that I wasn't with my parents made me see that parents are not gods."
Yoko Ono saw 'Nowhere Boy' twice and loved it. This is the same person who promoted "Imagine", the failed musical about John Lennon which put him up on a pedestal. 'Nowhere Boy' is a different kind of hagiography than the saintly John Lennon served up in the "Imagine' musical. Both portraits can be likened to two different views of Christ-like figures: the saintly Lennon is like the wandering miracle maker dressed in a white robe, healing those afflicted with a malaise of the spirit; the "Nowhere Boy' Lennon is one who undergoes a sort of spiritual crucifixion, enduring the slings and arrows of a torturous childhood and adolescence, emerging cleansed of all his trials and tribulations through a catharsis.
It's understandable that Yoko would hold on to both these idealized images of her slain husband. However, Paul McCartney, who actually remembers everything about growing up in Liverpool at that time, will have none of it. It's said that McCartney strongly objected to the scene where John punches him after his mother's funeral and asked Director Sam Taylor-Wood (who he supposedly was friends with) to take the scene out. Taylor-Wood refused and told him in substance, "it's just a movie". McCartney knows that Lennon would never have punched him because that would imply that Lennon allowed the bitterness of his upbringing to affect him. The film's scenarists would like us to believe that the climactic scene where he assaults McCartney, is where he exorcises his demons and achieves his catharsis (recall that he hugs McCartney afterward and apologizes). It's all cheap melodrama which never happened and the type of made up incident which Lennon would have also rejected had he been around to see the movie.
While 'Nowhere Boy' does a decent job of fleshing out the relationship between John's mother Julia and the aunt who raised him, Mimi, the more interesting story is the relationship John had with Paul as well as George and the peers he grew up with. All the key moments are covered in 'Nowhere Boy' including: the famous scene where John rides on the top of the bus, the first meeting with McCartney, the Quarrymen's first gig, a sexual encounter with a schoolmate, trouble at school, buying his first guitar—but it all seems like a glimpse at picture postcards. None of the relationships are developed, especially the most important one between Lennon and McCartney. And the real drama, of course, is not the dragged out familial problems, but how the Beatles actually came to be. To make that film, one would have had to have the rights to the Beatles catalog, a problem which the creators of 'Backbeat', the 1994 film about the Beatles Hamburg days, were also unable to overcome.
Perhaps the strongest aspect of 'Nowhere Boy' are the performances of Kristin Scott Thomas as Mimi and Anne-Marie Duff as Julia. Thomas is thoroughly convincing as the 'tough love' substitute parent playing opposite the troubled Bohemian of sorts, Julia. You can see how both women influenced Lennon's personality—he inherited Mimi's discipline and Julia's creativity and rebelliousness. Aaron Johnson manages to capture little of Lennon's great wit and humor, but is saddled by the ponderous script. The make-up department should be commended for making Johnson look like Lennon, especially once he adopts the Elvis pompadour. Thomas Brodie-Sangster takes a shot at Paul but doesn't look enough like the 'handsome' Beatle to be convincing. The actor who plays George looks nothing at all like him and the part is woefully underdeveloped.
We're informed by a prominent Beatles historian that 'Nowhere Boy' is the first film that covers John Lennon's early years including his upbringing and creation of the Beatles. While it does cover most of the bases, and does a decent job of defining the characters of Lennon's mother and aunt, Lennon himself comes off as a bit pathetic. Putting it another way—he's a character that all the joy has been sucked out of –and his angst-ridden replacement seems far from the flesh and blood rock icon, revered by millions.