Nowhere Boy

[Joe Wiz]

Saw this today. Bloody great. Vibrant soundtrack (Screamin Jay Hawkins version of I Put A Spell On You is amazing, isn't it?), beautifully filmed, historically accurate, pretty funny, stupidly moving, not cliched, Aaron Johnson nails enough of Lennon to get by, and it's the first Beatles biopic to show McCartney as the whirlwind of talent that he actually was, rather than a doe eyed balladeer living off Lennon's genius. See this film.

[diggedy derek]

Nowhere Boy

I'd rather listen to Double Fantasy while staring intently at the cover of Two Virgins than see this film, and I speak as someone who dedicated a whole weekend this year to listening to the entire Beatles mono back catalogue in order of recording dates,

[Lucia Lanigan]

Nowhere Boy

I just wish the newspapers would give this film more coverage. Five simultaneous cover features every week for a month simply is not enough. I'd particularly like to hear about the director having a younger boyfriend, because having read about it just 17 times this mindblowing concept still hasn't sunk in.

[Lucy Waterman]

Nowhere Boy

The real story is that a wealthy and well-connected person has managed to somehow fight their way to directing a British feature film, despite exhibiting little or no prior aptitude for the job.

Obviously this has never ever happened before. One almost wonders whether such an innovation will jeopardise the UK film industry's reputation for consistent artistic achievement and box-office success.

Still, thank the lord for the £1.2 million of lottery funding to help Ms Taylor-Wood realise her dream.

[Joe Wiz]

Nowhere Boy

Such vitriol....

[diggedy derek]

Nowhere Boy

I should point out that I think the idea of the film is quite an interesting one, there's a great story to be told there. But, judging this particular book by its cover, I'm not willing to give it a go. The title is terrible, Lennon looks offputtingly clean-cut, there's an overpowering whiff of the heritage industry, and a bizarre choice of director.

More importantly, though, the teeth-grindingly trite but oddly flat and non-commital way the The Guardian summarises the film on the poster – "Love me do. Witty and satisfying" – makes me suspect the kind of consensual critical cluster-fuck LL points to.

[Mark Felt]

Nowhere Boy

It's pretty good actually. Loses it's way for about 10 minutes in an effort to tie everything up a little too neatly, and so is undeniably better at setting up the intrigue at the heart of the narrative structure than resolving it, but the performances are universally excellent, and Aaron Johnson is outstanding as Lennon. Charisma to burn.

By the way, all the brouhaha over the director-star relationship made little sense to me before seeing the movie, but in the light of the unsubtle sexual undercurrent that dominates Lennon's initial reconnection with his mother, Taylor-Woods bedding of her young actor now has a distinctly whiffy, Oedipal scent to it. Euch.