Nowhere Boy - Behind Lennon's Lyrics

On October 9th, John Lennon would have noted his seventieth birthday. So maybe it's appointment to read a search at his turbulent youth and how his formative teenage years in Liverpool shaped the creative man and passionate musician he was to become. "Nowhere Boy" (The Weinstein Company)

strict disciplinarian Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas) and her husband, Uncle George (David Threlfall), he doesn't recognize that the woman he knows as vivacious, free-spirited, emotionally unstable Aunt Julia (Anne-Marie Duff), who lives not far away, is actually his father and that he was "kidnapped" by Aunt Mimi at the age of 5 when he cherished to go with his dad to New Zealand. About the sentence he discovers the complex, occasionally sordid truth, he's become infatuated with Elvis Presley and rock n' roll, starting a local band, known as The Quarrymen, and then making serious music with a left-handed guitarist, Paul McCartney (Thomas Sangster), and another bloke named George Harrison (Sam Bell). This background story ends as they point to Hamburg and embark on their lives as they develop into the Beatles. Adapted by Matt Greenhalgh ("Control") from Lennon's half-sister Julia Baird's memoir, "Imagine This: Growing Up with My Brother John Lennon," and directed by Sam Taylor-Wood, it's, essentially, a conventional, if tumultuous, family melodrama that takes its perceptive title from a school headmaster who chides cheeky young Lennon by telling him he's going nowhere. Glimpsing Mendips, Woolton and Strawberry Fields, where local celebrations were held, one feels drenched in the dull, gray dreariness of the Liverpool that Lennon eagerly left behind. Along with his uncanny resemblance, Aaron Johnson ("Kick-Ass") captures both the insecurity and the carefreeness of young Lennon, while Anne-Marie Duff and Kristin Scott Thomas embody the complicated, fiercely competitive sisters. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Nowhere Boy" is a poignant, perceptive 7, appealing to Beatles' aficionados and delving into the pop psychology behind Lennon's touching lyrics: "Mother, you had me, but I never had you." By Susan Granger2010Review of "Nowhere Boy" (The Weinstein Company)