Nowhere Boy (2009)
Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson
A rebellious teenager, future Beatle John Lennon lives with his Aunt Mimi in working-class mid-1950s Liverpool, England. Mimi's husband suddenly dies, and John spies his mother Julia at the funeral. Despite Mimi's misgivings, John intends to have a real relationship with his mother. Julia introduces him to popular music and the banjo and, though a family conflict looms, young John is inspired to form his own band.
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What critics compared Nowhere Boy to
Things don't get any less complicated for young John or Mimi when his birth mother, Julia (Anne-Marie Duff of The Magdalene Sisters and The Last Station), re-enters the picture.
Whether it be films they starred in (A Hard Day’s Night), films about them (Nowhere Boy) or films inspired by them (Across The Universe), their influence is undeniable.
And Taylor-Johnson (“Kick-Ass” and “Nowhere Boy”), unrecognizable with an icy blonde shag, and Olsen (the focus of many egregious cleavage shots, perhaps to keep pace with Johansson?), who paired on last summer’s “Godzilla” reboot, make a decent go at an Eastern Bloc accent, but they’re mostly garnish is this whirling dervish of a film that tries to hit all the plot points so it can lay down the gauntlet.
Parts of the novel made me laugh out loud, though the writing was so weak that I could never be sure the comedy was intentional; director Sam Taylor-Johnson, best known for her John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy , has seized on the more absurd aspects of the book, and her movie sometimes comes across as a satire of modern romance.