Nowhere Boy – 2009 | 98 mins | Drama | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Conceptual artist Sam Taylor-Wood’s first feature film is an engrossing rock ’n’ roll biopic about the late teenage years of the vulnerable but adventurous John Lennon. Taylor-Wood’s background in video art but her approach to cinema is fundamentally different. She offers an accessible and conservative post-war period piece that occasionally jars with populist scenes. Screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh focuses sensitively on relationships, and especially the one between Lennon and his aunt Mimi. Aaron Johnson is suitably young and brooding but never quite convinces. The two women in Lennon’s life are excellently portrayed by Kristen Scott-Thomas as Mimi, the prudish aunt whose attitude is born of protectiveness, whilst Anne-Marie Duff is warmer but less trustworthy.

In 1950s Liverpool, 15-year-old tearaway John Lennon (Aaron Johnson) is being raised by his prim and proper Aunt Mimi (Kristen Scott-Thomas) and beloved Uncle George. But when George suddenly dies, John is compelled to look for his mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff), a flighty soul who walked out when he was five. Julia is seemingly settled with dependable Bobby Dykins (David Morrissey) and their two daughters, but feeling unwanted amongst a settled family – John returns to live with Mimi.

Mother and son have formed a tentative bond and both share a passion for rock’n'roll, and it’s Julia who introduces him to his first instrument: the banjo. Mimi reluctantly seeks to further nurture the schoolboy’s interest in music and buys him his first guitar. John subsequently forms a skiffle band, The Quarrymen, initially consisting of school friends but later Lennon is joined by fresh-faced Paul McCartney (Thomas Sangster) and George Harrison. John eventually faces his Issues of abandonment with his mother and Mimi, and briefly the family are reconciled until Julia’s untimely death.