Nowhere Boy not going anywhere

This film really fails to be anything, despite its ready-made subject matter: the young John Lennon's difficult relationships with his mother, who abandoned him, and his aunt, who brought him up. While attempting to engage with this somewhat challenging material, the film keeps throwing in lighter moments in the form of Lennon's developing musical ability and newfound rock'n'roll lifestyle. This wouldn't be a problem, except that the very young cast are clearly more comfortable with the rock'n'roll than the relationships. What results is a mishmash of a film, full of awkward foreshadowing, heavy-handed conveyance of emotion, and some rather good rock'n'roll.

The two main female characters are treated with irritating partisanship. At intervals the director intrudes to force on us the opinion that one or the other is the "bad guy", with no consistency or real justification. As we're dragged towards an overblown emotional climax followed by a sickly-sweet reconciliation, one can't help wishing that the cast would shut up and tell the story already.

Aside from being forced, the film manages to be technically inaccurate as well. We see the young Lennon overjoyed at the gift of a mouth organ, which we're given to understand is his first musical instrument. We're treated to a lovely montage of his discovery and gradual mastery of the banjo - an instrument with five strings. His relatively late arrival to music is demonstrated, and it's made clear that he, like everyone else, has to work hard to play well.

No sooner is this accomplished than it is all undermined. We see Lennon in a music store, picking up a six-string guitar apparently for the first time, and playing it effortlessly and well. Between one scene and the next he transforms from a normal boy taking delight in a new skill, to a genius who can convert banjo fingerings to guitar fingerings in an instant, notwithstanding the very different sizes and shapes of the two instruments. I lost faith in the film at this moment, and it never made any attempt to win me back.

It's a harmless piece of fluff, but it's doesn't go far enough in the directions of either seriousness or fun. Better left unseen.