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Created Mar 18, 2011 10:34PM PST • Edited Apr 29, 2021 07:24PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Nowhere Boy is a portrait of the artist as a very young man. Which artist? John of Nowhere Man fame, of John, Paul, George and Ringo fame. That makes it essential viewing for Beatle fans; optional for squares.

   Raised by an aunt who took him in, tempted and betrayed by the mother who gave him his rock-n-roll spirit, John Lennon’s traumatic childhood instilled a deep-seated alienation. No wonder he became an angry young man, naturally anti-authoritarian.

   Nowhere Boy hits its stride as John discovers the power that comes to a rockstar. First a pretty Liverpool lass readily drops her knickers behind a hedge. Later he breaks a washboard over a lesser bandmate’s head, pops him in the nose, then does the same to Paul McCartney.

   It paints his mother Julia Lennon as kind of a freak – frisky and flirty, more an older sister than a parent. Prone to disordered thinking and periods of melancholy, she was evidently bipolar. Amongst their precious moments recreated: Julia teaching John to play banjo, his first instrument.

   Later it shows John stewing when he sees the provocative effect that Paul’s singing has on his mum. How confusing this must have been to a bunch of boys in the Fifties, the power to cause female shoulders to shimmy. For John especially, seeing his Mother amongst the sea of parted ruby lips splayed in front of the stage … Oedipus call your office.

   Most delightful for we Beatle fans are the Lennon and McCartney scenes: John and Paul’s first meeting; John’s dominance establishing wisecracks; Paul teaching John their first song; Paul rocking polished talent right from the get go. Close behind comes Paul orchestrating a very young George Harrison’s raunchy audition for John on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus. Beatle-rific.

   Notwithstanding its many reality liberties, Nowhere Boy paints a convincingly realistic portrait of the ultimate rebel as fledgling rockstar. More importantly, using no Beatles songs it still evokes their spirit. Rock on.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   The actors playing the Beatles don’t measure up to the real John, Paul and George, each of whom looked better than the actor portraying him, which is the opposite of how these things usually go.

   Aaron Johnson comes closest to matching the charisma of his real life doppelgänger, a good thing since the movie is about John Lennon.

   The actresses playing the sisters who raised him impress the most: Kristin Scott Thomas as his proper Aunt Mimi and Anne-Marie Duff as his wild mother Julia Lennon.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars OK 2.5

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    The opening scene starts with a bright Beatles chord, the one that kicks off A Hard Day’s Night perhaps. Then John scampers along to the sounds of screaming girls chasing him. That sort of elegant tease characterizes the entire film, which obviously wasn’t sanctioned by the surviving Beatles and presents John’s story through the recollection of his half-sister Julia Baird.

    And yet it well captures John, the original rebel, auditioning to be a rocker even before he knew he could play or sing, a bad influence in the best way. How we miss him.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Really Great 4.5

    No Beatles songs, yet filled with those that influenced them and that they played as the Quarrymen before becoming the Beatles. It also closes with Mother, a real Lennon song he wrote about his parents.

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.4

    Please Please Me was the Beatles second single, though the movie makes clear that some girls didn’t expect John to say please. Many were eager to please the charismatic frontman of a rock-n-roll band. Millions ultimately.

17. Sex Erotic 3.0

18. Violence Fierce 1.6

19. Rudeness Profane 2.6

    Lots of British swearing.

21. Reality

    Glib 1.3

    Based on a memoir by John’s half-sister Julia Baird, the movie veers in and out of historical accuracy. For instance, John doesn’t encounter his Mother from age five till his middle teens in the movie, while the Wikipedia account says she was an active presence in his life through much of this period.

    So while Nowhere Boy is a biopic, it is more loosely “based on true events” than an accurate biography.

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0