User Reviews

I am a total nut about The Beatles, particularly John Lennon, and particularly when he was young. In spite of a few character flaws (the occasional smacking around girlfriends, etc.), pre-Yoko Lennon was always my favorite Beatle, and frankly one of my personal heroes.

I went into this movie already thoroughly acquainted with the story of Lennon's upbringing, of Mimi vs. Julia, The Quarrymen, art college, etc. Having been burned by movies like "Backbeat" and "Birth of The Beatles", I was bracing myself for a barrage of misinformation, out-of-order chronology, and embarrassing rock n' roll clichés. All in all I was very pleasantly surprised. The attention to detail and historical accuracy was such a breath of fresh air after all the years of sub-par Beatle bio-flicks.

It was a joy to see how faithfully they re-created Mimi and George's house. They had John Lennon's actual childhood artwork and photos hanging around. They found an identical guitar to the one he first played in school, etc. But the main thing I wanted to write about are the characters: I was particularly happy to see the way Aunt Mimi was portrayed. She always gets a bad rep as this shrewd, cold, mean old lady, and it always bugs the crud out of me (actually, in the initial script she was written that way; McCartney and Yoko had to tell Sam Taylor-Wood it was unfair to her). She and Lennon were super-close; at odds sometimes, but they always had a deep love for one another.

However, it was a little distressing to me how poor Julia was treated. The movie makes her out to be some neglectful, childish strumpet who never bothered to know her son until he was almost grown. The truth is Julia and John saw each other during his childhood as often as circumstances allowed (albeit infrequently), and were very close in the years leading to her death. It doesn't seem as if the real Julia was as loose and out of control as the movie implies. I think it was more that her whimsy and eccentricity bothered straight-laced Mimi. Mimi allegedly got custody of John after ranting and raving to child services that her sister was "unfit to be a parent" and insisted on taking him. Given how old-fashioned Mimi was, there's a good chance that Julia's "hard living" was blown way out of proportion (ironically, there's some evidence that Mimi was having an affair with her student lodger, Michael - hypocrite, much?). By today's standards, their whole family situation isn't really that scandalous (*gasp*, "you sleep with someone you're not married to!"), but I suppose it was for then. Just some food for thought.

I was also a little rubbed that they had young Paul McCartney acting like John's teacher or something. He might've known more chords, or written a song or two, but he and Lennon were both relatively clueless when they began playing together. Lennon asking him "Why do you know so much?" - kinda lame considering that McCartney was pretty in awe of him too.

Lastly, the man, the myth, the legend himself: I think this movie hits closest to the mark on young Lennon's personality out of any film ever made about him. He was a complex guy, especially in his youth (before he was Mr. "Peace and Love"). I think the tough guy posturing was probably dead on. The unchecked confidence that just oozes from Aaron Johnson's pores really sells it. You get the sense that teenage Lennon is only bluffing his "dangerous troublemaker" bit, which was probably the case. I would've liked to have seen a little more of his sense of humor (the classic cheeky Lennon wit is missing a little bit). Although I appreciate the effort to also have him show some sensitivity, I think in this movie it's the wrong kind.

I think John could've been written a little friendlier, warmer, kinder. Despite his teddy boy image, he apparently could be a sweetheart (you know, when not mocking the disabled or swearing at old ladies). It's the mixture of that "I'm a badass" hardness and who he was underneath that make him such a fascinating character.

It's common knowledge that his family situation was something he was deeply embarrassed about, and that his mother's death was really hard on him, but young Lennon was also notorious for hiding any emotion that wasn't blind rage. I seriously doubt that he would've gotten into some screamy-crying emotional spat with Mimi and his mom. I mean, come on - punching out Paul, running out of the house crying like some whiny little brat? Where's the chilled-out, laid back sarcastic guy we all know and love? Lennon was plenty interesting enough on his own - no need to make him carry on like a soap star.

In the end, I have to keep in mind that it's only a movie, and compared to what's come before it I think it does a relatively wonderful job of showing what life was like for the young, pre "fab" Beatles; the history is pretty on the nuggets (it would've been cool to see Stu make an appearance, but you can't have everything), the writing and the acting are superb, and It's cool to see so much of Liverpool. Go watch it. Right now. Do it. Now.

This film is set during the teenage years of one of the greatest musicians in history, John Lennon. He is shown here in his youth as a boorish, foul-mouthed hoodlum and womaniser, thoroughly disinterested in school and regularly getting into trouble. Having been given away by his mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff) when he was just five-years-old, John lives with his very proper auntie Mimi Smith (Kirsten Scott Thomas) and they share a tenuous relationship. Following the death of his uncle though, John learns that his mother lives just down the street and decides to visit her. His mother is a highly enthusiastic, vigorous woman and he takes to her kindness. They start to rekindle their relationship and while John is suspended from school she teaches him to play the banjo and inspires him to start a rock and roll band.

Nowhere Boy, directed by Sam Taylor Wood, is credited to being adapted from a memoir by John Lennon's half-sister, Julia Braid. Yet one must assume that Matt Greenhalgh's screenplay is largely improvised given the absence of Julia throughout the majority of the film. She is not present to witness many of the critical moments portrayed in Nowhere Boy. There is little doubt that the film has its heart in the right place in attempting to present a story that is largely unfamiliar, but wholly valuable to those that appreciated Lennon later in his career. It might indeed be accurate in a more general manor – that John could have been a very misbehaving student - but the way that it is portrayed throughout the film lacks both credibility and subtlety. Where the film suffers most for this is in its characterisation, which is quick to draw such thick lines between the personas. Kristen Scott Thomas is thorough in her role as the pompous Mimi but the script, and presumably Wood's direction of her actors, remains so constrictive that the performance rarely eventuates into something more complex. Mimi's nemesis and antithesis is of course her sister Julia, who is rather loose and excitable, almost overbearing with the affection she shows for her son. Neither performance is poor; its just that they are so obvious in contrast, between the tough but responsible woman and the more loving but irresponsible ditz.

The livelier portion of the narrative is dedicated to the formation of Lennon's first band The Quarrymen. Aaron Johnson seems slightly blank in those initial scenes, reuniting himself and his mother, but he shines with a complete idea of how to play an arrogant, self-absorbed wannabe musician, with utter swagger. Whether this representation is entirely accurate, or another contrivance, will be up to the more knowledgeable Lennon fans to decide. It's an image of Lennon that works for and against the film because it is a portrayal that few will have seen, but by the end one still wants to know how he went from this scallywag, to a man of such integrity and spirituality. The inclusion of Paul McCartney is somewhat problematic as well because the actor playing him, Thomas Sangster (the little boy from Love, Actually), looks to be ten years old, even though he is actually nineteen in real life. He is a minor character but he also represents the way things happen so rapidly in this film. He meets John randomly at school and is included in the band almost instantly, then happens to introduce Lennon to his friend named George on a bus. Fortunately, Paul's inclusion at least gives the film its one really touching moment where he and John console each other in their common grief. We know in this moment that there is something stronger than just music which will tie these boys together for much of their coming lives. It is a scene of such empathy between the two characters that speaks greater volumes than any amount of yelling from some of the more dramatic scenes in the film.

One can appreciate the courage of Nowhere Boy and its director to attempt to tell a rather unflattering story about one of the world's most loved musicians. It is a story that will interest and surprise many. Others will simply relish the quality of the music and the rich soundtrack, which includes artists like Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, the real Lennon and a number of others from the period. Yet it is difficult not to question the authenticity of the film and how well it has been researched because of the overall simplicity of a number of the character portrayals. It is an imperfect film but one that is still quite watchable because of its ambition and the glimpses of its heart.

When I first heard about "Nowhere Boy" I wanted to see it, and I wasn't disappointed. I've read numerous Beatles biographies and I've sat through several cheaply made TV movies about the Beatles."Nowhere Boy" is a solid, well made Channel 4 drama that concentrates on John Lennon's early life, without sensationalising Lennon's family history or exploiting the Beatles legend. Paul and George are treated as friends that the young John encounters, who become important in his life as members of his band. There are scenes of Paul and John learning from each other and writing songs, but none are Beatles classics that make the audience swoon with recognition. It was a real pleasure for me that during the scene in which John visits the cemetery there was no tombstone marked "Eleanor Rigby" (a sequence in "Birth of the Beatles" rigged up a fake tombstone for the young John to sit on and smoke on while he talked about his future dreams with the young Paul). Stu Suttcliffe, John's great friend, isn't in this movie, and neither is Cynthia, or John's art school days. I felt that was fair enough as other movies such as BackBeat have covered John's development as a young adult.The emphasis in "Nowhere Boy" is fully on John's coming of age as a teenager in 1950s Liverpool, and exploring what it meant to be a teenager both at the time and in John's troubled family. There's a small glimpse of Strawberry Fields at the start of the film, but I felt that was justified, as it was a Salvation Army children's home next door to the house in which Lennon grew up, and it was a foreshadowing of the fate that Lennon might have encountered if not for his Aunt Mimi's willingness to take him in when he was 5 years old. During the film, Mimi reveals to him that he had a younger half sister he never met. When he asks where she is, Mimi replies, "the Salvation Army got her".

The performances by Aaron Johnson and Kristin Scott Thomas are good; Annie-Marie Duff's portrayal as the youthful but irresponsible mother is admirable. The recreation of 1950s Liverpool is also very well done: but the art direction and the set direction annoyed my husband. He pointed out that everything was clean, even in the school. No dirt or wear or tear is shown anywhere. Surely Julia's house crowded with young children, clutter, and teenaged visitors wasn't so spotless. The film also doesn't convey John's being much better off financially than his bandmates. Aunt Mimi's house (even with her need to take in a lodger) is middle class; George and Paul grew up in two up two down working class terrace houses.

Ultimately the film is let down by a descent into sentimentality towards the very end: although it steers past the Beatle clichés it can't resist an overextended scene in a sunlit garden, showing the two sisters and John happy together, perfect bliss hinting heavily at the tragedy about to strike. I was annoyed by the casting, as Thomas Sangster as Paul looks much younger than 15, and Aaron Johnson as John looks much older than 16-17. Boys grow at different development rates, but still, next to Sangster's Paul Johnson's Lennon looks like a fully grown man. The difference goes much further than suggesting Lennon was more mature than Paul (and his schoolfriends) at the time due to his experiences: it makes the audience wonder what John sees in a pipsqueak like Paul (besides his guitar playing). It would have been much more effective to have a slightly older looking actor than Sangster play Paul: George was much younger than John and Paul and he had to prove his mastery of guitar playing in order to be accepted into the band.

"Nowhere Boy" is well worth seeing, and rewarding for audiences that aren't Beatles fans. Its greatest strength is not shying away from showing the dark sides of Lennon's character, and not giving any easy answers as to how John became both a beloved icon of pop music and a man who often acted cruelly to the people closest to him.

According to John Lennon's cousin, Leila Harvey, during the time she knew him (when he was between the ages of 9 and 16), he was a "happy-go-lucky, good-humored, easy going, lively lad." But looking at 'Nowhere Boy', the film that is supposed to accurately chronicle the coming of age years of John Lennon, you would be more likely to get the impression that he was a troubled and angst-ridden adolescent who was hardly the "happy-go-lucky" kid who eventually became the co-leader of the greatest rock band of the 20th century. And that is the problem with 'Nowhere Boy'--it simply fails to answer why John Lennon was charismatic, even in his unformed early days.

He was charismatic because he WAS quick, witty, iconoclastic and wickedly humorous, all IN SPITE of his difficult childhood. He was the type of person, I believe, who never dwelt on the past and probably would have dismissed 'Nowhere Boy' as tendentious nonsense. A few months before his death, Lennon spoke about his upbringing and he praised his mother and all of his aunts. There is not a hint of anger or bitterness which "Nowhere Boy" implies consumed him while growing up: "There were five women who were my family. Five strong, intelligent women. Five sisters. Those women were fantastic ... that was my first feminist education ... One happened to be my mother ... she just couldn't deal with life. She had a husband who ran away to sea and the war was on and she couldn't cope with me, and when I was four-and-a-half, I ended up living with her elder sister ... the fact that I wasn't with my parents made me see that parents are not gods."

Yoko Ono saw 'Nowhere Boy' twice and loved it. This is the same person who promoted "Imagine", the failed musical about John Lennon which put him up on a pedestal. 'Nowhere Boy' is a different kind of hagiography than the saintly John Lennon served up in the "Imagine' musical. Both portraits can be likened to two different views of Christ-like figures: the saintly Lennon is like the wandering miracle maker dressed in a white robe, healing those afflicted with a malaise of the spirit; the "Nowhere Boy' Lennon is one who undergoes a sort of spiritual crucifixion, enduring the slings and arrows of a torturous childhood and adolescence, emerging cleansed of all his trials and tribulations through a catharsis.

It's understandable that Yoko would hold on to both these idealized images of her slain husband. However, Paul McCartney, who actually remembers everything about growing up in Liverpool at that time, will have none of it. It's said that McCartney strongly objected to the scene where John punches him after his mother's funeral and asked Director Sam Taylor-Wood (who he supposedly was friends with) to take the scene out. Taylor-Wood refused and told him in substance, "it's just a movie". McCartney knows that Lennon would never have punched him because that would imply that Lennon allowed the bitterness of his upbringing to affect him. The film's scenarists would like us to believe that the climactic scene where he assaults McCartney, is where he exorcises his demons and achieves his catharsis (recall that he hugs McCartney afterward and apologizes). It's all cheap melodrama which never happened and the type of made up incident which Lennon would have also rejected had he been around to see the movie.

While 'Nowhere Boy' does a decent job of fleshing out the relationship between John's mother Julia and the aunt who raised him, Mimi, the more interesting story is the relationship John had with Paul as well as George and the peers he grew up with. All the key moments are covered in 'Nowhere Boy' including: the famous scene where John rides on the top of the bus, the first meeting with McCartney, the Quarrymen's first gig, a sexual encounter with a schoolmate, trouble at school, buying his first guitar—but it all seems like a glimpse at picture postcards. None of the relationships are developed, especially the most important one between Lennon and McCartney. And the real drama, of course, is not the dragged out familial problems, but how the Beatles actually came to be. To make that film, one would have had to have the rights to the Beatles catalog, a problem which the creators of 'Backbeat', the 1994 film about the Beatles Hamburg days, were also unable to overcome.

Perhaps the strongest aspect of 'Nowhere Boy' are the performances of Kristin Scott Thomas as Mimi and Anne-Marie Duff as Julia. Thomas is thoroughly convincing as the 'tough love' substitute parent playing opposite the troubled Bohemian of sorts, Julia. You can see how both women influenced Lennon's personality—he inherited Mimi's discipline and Julia's creativity and rebelliousness. Aaron Johnson manages to capture little of Lennon's great wit and humor, but is saddled by the ponderous script. The make-up department should be commended for making Johnson look like Lennon, especially once he adopts the Elvis pompadour. Thomas Brodie-Sangster takes a shot at Paul but doesn't look enough like the 'handsome' Beatle to be convincing. The actor who plays George looks nothing at all like him and the part is woefully underdeveloped.

We're informed by a prominent Beatles historian that 'Nowhere Boy' is the first film that covers John Lennon's early years including his upbringing and creation of the Beatles. While it does cover most of the bases, and does a decent job of defining the characters of Lennon's mother and aunt, Lennon himself comes off as a bit pathetic. Putting it another way—he's a character that all the joy has been sucked out of –and his angst-ridden replacement seems far from the flesh and blood rock icon, revered by millions.

It helps if you read this review with a nasal British accent. Bonus points for having a big cartoon nose.

John Lennon's high school principal tells him, "You're going nowhere, son." At that point, you're meant to slap yourself on the knee and exclaim "Hah! Little did he know!" Do you feel dirty yet? A mixture of myth and melodrama, NOWHERE BOY follows teen John (Aaron Johnson) from his troubled youth in 1950s Liverpool, juggling school, sex and two sets of parents (blood and foster), up to the point he leaves for Germany with a new band that we never hear named.

And that's the strange dichotomy in this biopic about the founding member of The Beatles: We know going in that this is the story of a young man who would be in a band "bigger than Jesus," yet the filmmakers keep the elbow-nudges so subtle that they may as well not be pertinent at all; musically, besides the opening chord to A Hard Day's Night, we don't hear any Beatles soundtrack, even the word 'Beatles' is never mentioned. Yet they want us to care about this rowdy boy raised by two lonely women battling for his affections - but if this boy weren't John Lennon, would we care? Because every one of us has a sob story to tell. Just because he's The Walrus, does it mean his origin tale is any more compelling than ours? Going to such lengths to AVOID Beatles allusions, isn't the film nothing more than a glorified soap opera?

It's touted as the birth of the Beatles, but it's not. Because there are no threads or foreshadowing of what these lads might become. It's more a chronicle of one boy's artist-rebel psyche. And again, if the boy wasn't Lennon - would we care?

Soaping the two sides of this emotional story of betrayal, selfishness and repentance are John's conservative, widowed, responsible Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas) and his irresponsible, flighty mother Julia (played with red-headed spryness by Anne-Marie-Duff). From a memoir by Lennon's half-sister, Julia Baird, director Sam Taylor-Wood and screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh might be trying to tell us that John got his rock from Mimi and his roll from Julia.

We meet Lennon as a fresh-faced (yet not altogether innocent) teen, living with Mimi and Uncle George (David Threlfal, who was James Cromwell in a previous life). After the death of George (who was more like a "best mate" to John than an authority figure, as Mimi was), teen John seeks out his birth mother.

Enter Julia, a free spirit (who these days would be called trailer trash); flirtatious, profligate, alcoholic, who gave up John in his infancy to Mimi because she knew she was too irresponsible to raise him. She treats John almost as a girlfriend would and her sensual forwardness is Oedipally uncomfortable. She introduces John to rock and roll (frankly telling him "rock and roll means sex") and teaches him banjo. (An effete young lad named Paul McCartney (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) would later teach John guitar).

The two women would battle for John's affections, Mimi feeling she earned the right to them by raising him, and Julia feeling her maternity guaranteed her right.

Then there is John's fledgling friendship with Pete Shotton (Josh Bolt) - a name that the under-20s might not recognize as Lennon's first partner in crime/bandmate; we see Lennon's first band, The Quarrymen, playing atop a flatbed truck (sound quality is too good for an open air crapfest, but we let that slide); we eventually see the seminal incarnation of George, John and Paul, but we never do meet Ringo, and the movie ends with John telling Aunt Mimi that he is leaving for Hamburg "with that new group." Mimi asks, "What's it called?" John jokes, "Do you care?"

Movie's title is misleading; though Lennon wrote Nowhere Man later in life, he was not a "Nowhere Boy." And though his displacement amongst two mothers might have been psychically damaging, the movie itself never portrays him as a rudderless, antisocial miscreant, but as someone who knew what he wanted and ambitiously sought it. (Young Elvis on TV was a major inspiration, at one point, John lamenting, "Why couldn't God make ME Elvis?!" Julia replies, "Because he was saving you for John Lennon!" Yes, I feel dirty again.) Of course, fame is where luck and effort and right-place-right-time collide (and the leap from flatbed truck to Hamburg definitely warrants a Python-esque "Scene Missing" title card), but to sustain that momentum, you can't possibly be a "nowhere boy" no matter what your public image portrays.

We are left with the impression that now all Lennon needs is a big-nosed drummer whose jokes outweigh his talent, a Kaiserkeller and some tight trousers - and he'll be well on his way to Eggman Jesus.

--Poffy The Cucumber

You don't have to be a fan of the Beatles to enjoy this film. I'm a huge fan and already knew the story, but my friend didn't and we both found it extraordinary. I've disliked almost every film about the Beatles - mostly because they're so clichéd and focus on them finding fame. This is not about the Bealtes - it is a movie about a young man reuniting with his mother. The young boy just happens to be John Lennon.

Aaron Johnson is perfectly cast as John Lennon - he may not like like Lennon, but who cares. His performance is near perfect, playing Lennon as brittle, lost, crass, sweet, caring and charismatic - much like the man himself. Kristen Scott-Thomas portrays Aunt Mimi with such aplomb that it's hard not to love Mimi despite her cool exterior and inability to openly show her emotions. Ann Maree Duff plays Lennon's mother with a complexity of spirit and if you know the lyrical references in Lennon's songs to Julia, then you will love her performance all the more.

And those is minor roles also excel. Thomas Sangster as Paul McCartney (again he doesn't look remotely like Paul - again who cares) is simply excellent. The film portrays the early relationship between Paul and John. John teaching Paul not to be such a sop and Paul teaching John to be more controlled. One of the most moving scenes is when the two men embrace at Julia's funeral - a bond between two boys who both lost their mothers. The film implies that although the two deeply respected each other - it was never a truly easy relationship. Sangster lights up the screen whenever he appears.

If you are expecting a movie about the Beatles - this is not it. This is a film about relationships between mothers and sons, sisters and friends. If you like your movies complex and intricately written - then this is for you.

I'm not sure what the negative reviewers on IMDb saw, but it certainly wasn't this film. They seem to have problems with the premise of the film, the very nature of biopics, and non- existent problems with the film itself. Let me get something straight- biopic films are melodramatic and exaggerated by nature. Otherwise, we'd get a much more watered down film that'll only interest the most hardcore of fans, and bore everyone else to death. If you want realism, read a John Lennon biography, or watch a documentary. This, by its own admission, is a DRAMA about a teenage John Lennon, and the emotional effect his mother and aunt had on his adolescence. It isn't about his adulthood, or the music itself- that was made clear with in the advertising, so I'm not sure what people are whining about.

Having said that, this film is far from sugar-coated and pleasant. It gave a very honest and objective look at the man, showing that he wasn't a saint, and at times portrays characteristics not unlike the antagonistic school bully in your average high school movie, particularly in his treatment of the young Paul McCartney. It reminded me a lot of Cemetery Junction- not necessarily 100% realistic, but still dramatic and dark, as well as being humorous, heartwarming and uplifting in places. The film does an excellent job of showcasing Lennon's signature witty retorts and mindset, and that brings me on to the performances.

The acting is more or less spot on. Aaron Johnson, Kirsten Scott Thomas and Anne-Marie Duff all work together to create a triumvirate of acting perfection- each part is entirely naturalistic and believable portrayed, and the emotional turmoil that John is feeling really reflects on the viewer- Is his mother free-spirited and lovable, or reckless and frivolous? Is his aunt cold and oppressive, or loving and protective? The film constantly throws the viewer between each one, and although not necessarily excellently plotted or expertly constructed, Nowhere Boy creates a potent drama that asks as many questions as it attempts to answer. I, for one, enjoyed the hell out of this, and would recommend it to Beatles fan or hater alike.

Pop, as quite a few musicologists have observed, is 'mom': a couple of three letter words with a deep symbiotic relationship. A relationship occasionally verging, as Nowhere Boy suggests, on the inappropriate. From Jim Morrison scandalously acting out the myth of Oedipus in 'The End', to Roger Waters plaintively asking his suffocating matriarch "Do you think she's good enough for me?" in Pink Floyd's The Wall, the history of 'mother love' among male singers is long.

John Lennon, a hierophant among pop's arch-confessors, certainly had his fair share of 'mother issues', as evinced by the White Album's 'Julia', a supremely moving and delicate tribute to his late mother, lyrically enmeshed with a love poem to Yoko Ono. Later, on his debut solo album, he'd give full vent to the peculiarly ambiguous relationship via a full-throated primal scream: "Mother, you had me, but I never had you."

That ambiguity lies at the heart of artist Sam Taylor-Wood's first full-length feature, the first Lennon biopic to brave a fuller excavation of one of pop's saddest back stories, and one of its most complicated psychologies; a man with a distinctly wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am attitude toward the fairer sex, but who'd also refer to Ono as 'Mother.'

As chronicled in the film, we see how the boy Lennon was raised by his aunt, Mary 'Mimi' Smith, who took him in after it was thought that her younger sister was incapable of looking after him properly. In his teens, which is when the film properly begins, he goes on to pinball between the two very different women, the stoic Mimi (a surprisingly well-cast Kristin Scott Thomas, transplanting that glorious sang-froid to Liverpool) and the flighty, possibly manic-depressive Julia (Anne Marie Duff, also excellent). Living just round the corner, and closer to her son's age, Julia buys him his first guitar, and introduces him to rock 'n' roll, before, tragically, she's knocked down and killed by an off-duty drunk-driving policeman when Lennon is 17.

In Matt (Control) Greenhalgh's screenplay, we first spot Julia lurking in the cemetery, during a funeral for John's Uncle George; she is already among the dead. And there is something truly doomed about her, a butterfly fluttering toward the flame, as her belated reunion with John approaches, though never quite nudges, incest. "I love you, you're my dream" the ultimate MILF tells him, during a mother and son's stroll down Blackpool promenade that feels uncomfortably close to a date. And she tells him what the phrase 'rock n roll' really means, while flirting with sailors in front of the jealous guy. "She'll hurt you" warns Mimi, lashing her metaphorical apron strings like steel whips. Adding, "Your mother has always needed company. Do you know what I mean by 'company'?"

This is tough stuff. With the exception of Christopher Munch's lo-fi masterpiece The Hours And Times, it's darker than previous Beatles biopics, and though it takes a few liberties with the timeline, the emotional honesty rings true. As far as these kinds of parcelled middlebrow dramas go (in which everyone achieves a tidy sort of redemption and closure before the credits), it is perfectly respectable. But it is also significantly, perhaps even fatally, flawed.

Despite some gripes, it's not tremendously important that the actors playing the nascent Beatles look nothing like their real-life counterparts; although, in all honesty, Barack Obama, Devendra Banhart and Robert Pershing Wadlow (the world's tallest man, 1918-1940) look more like John, George and Paul than this bunch.

But in casting Aaron Johnson as Lennon, you can't help thinking the producers have gone for beauty and youth over dynamism. Johnson (who, in a fairground-mirror reflection of the dynamic playing out on screen has just become engaged to the much older Sam Taylor Wood) possesses the artist's dreaminess - actually, he has something of the puppy-eyed pre-Saturday Night Fever Travolta about him - but lacks brittleness. The hardness. The element that made Ian Hart's rendition so conclusively definitive in The Hours And Times and Backbeat. Even when head-butting fellow band members, you can tell his heart isn't really in it. This current vogue for casting pretty boys in big leading roles (see: Robert Pattinson's Salvador Dali in Little Ashes, Zac Efron in Me And Orson Welles) may be honey to the box office bee, but it's railroading pictures. And anyway, the thing about Lennon was, he wasn't pretty. That was Paul's job.

There is also an appallingly clunky wedge of exposition in the final act, which seems to zoom in from nowhere, as Mimi relates to the tearful lad and the quaking Julia how her sister and Lennon's errant father Alf fought for ownership of the boy. It's awful and embarrassing, with Gothic, doomy chords punctuating the drama, like something out of a Jane Austen adaptation, while Mimi might as well be intoning, "Gather ye round and harken! It was a dark and stormy night..." It's a mystifying misstep in a film that previously only implies and hints at childhood trauma in flashback, and is all the more powerful for it.

More successfully evoked is the mothballed late 1950s, but also a sense of real change coming up from the streets. The Beatles' origin story is also well realised, with Lennon furiously attempting to stamp his will on an ersatz family. In Paul McCartney (Thomas Sangster), he'd find a talent to match his own, and a more pragmatic, prematurely world-weary confidante; McCartney's mother died two years before John's. In perhaps the most moving scene of all, the then Quarrymen file into Percy Phillips' Liverpool recording studio in 1958 to lay down the track 'In spite of all the danger.' The sense of lost boys mewling for their absent mothers is palpable.