Maidexpl
Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast
Dynamixor
The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
AshUnow
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Gareth Crook
Biopics are often tricky, do you cast someone in the lead who doesn't look or sound like the subject, but can deliver the perfect character, or do you cast a lookalike, but one that struggles in their portrayal? Jack Lowden lands somewhere in between, which might well be a good thing and he does sound a bit like Morrissey. Katherine Pearce as Angie is very good too, one of many smaller roles who really helps drive this film. Style wise it's gloriously bleak, overly poetic. Greasy spoon cafes, crackly record players, drab wallpaper and tank tops. Little details like rain drumming on single paned windows and remembering how wonderfully bloody loud that was. Depicting the young singers life, this covers the bedroom years of the late 70s, attacking the NME letters page, daydreaming and not fitting in with the humdrum of when Britain was great (it wasn't). The details are stylised caricatures though, there's no grit, it could almost pass for a comedy, albeit a dark one. The Pistols Free Trade Hall gig is one of the details that tries to anchor this in reality, but really this could be about any young aspiring writer or wannabe band member going about their lives as an exercise in awkwardness. One thing that certainly is great is the music, not Smiths of course, it predates that, but glam and scuzzy punk in scuzzy flats and 50s doo-wop... still in scuzzy flats. Every scene bathed in smoke and the haze of daylight dust. By in large it's very enjoyable, Lowden is very watchable, the story shuffles along. As for accuracy... frankly who cares. A good yardstick with films like this is would you like to be in that world. The answer is emphatically yes!
Clipster12
A film/docudrama about the early days of The Smiths/Morrissey. When this is set, in the late 70's, if you took a photograph and had it developed you would have got a photo and a negative copy. This film is like the negative of the events. It's like the uninteresting part of something special...... and don't get me wrong . The Smiths were special, in every sense of the word. Shame, what could have been..........
Mike Baker
At last, a musical biopic that doesn't throw in cheap references, nor equally cheap laughs, and instead gives us a sober, realistic and not always warm character study of the formative years of one of Britain's best loved singer-songwriters. But be warned - if you have no interest in Steven Patrick Morrissey, indeed if you have a passing love for the band and aren't too bothered in learning how he came up with the lyrics that he did, then much of ENGLAND IS MINE might not do a lot for you. This film is definitely one for the proper fans, and for those of us in that position it's a real treat. Lots to love about this one. Jack Lowden might not look a lot like Morrissey but he gets across very well the sense of alienation and perpetual disappointment that surrounds our hero. He's bored and unfulfilled with every aspect of his life, feeling like there's something more out there and yet too shy and not forthcoming enough to go after it. That lack of belonging is something many young people experience - I know I did - and Morrissey is kind of the Dean of that time in life, and Lowden nails it. His friendship with Linder (fantastic Jessica Brown Findlay) shows him finding a rare kindred spirit, and he reacts to the lost chance of success he arrives at briefly with Adam Lawrence's Billy Duffy by doing what we would all like to and retreating to his bedroom.The period detail is excellent - you get the vision of late 70s/early 80s Manchester as a bit of a dive, crammed with lost souls and angry voices, from which Morrissey feels entirely apart. Lovely touches, like the cracked, single pane windows upon which rain hammers, add to to reality. The choice of musical numbers is another bonus. There are no Smiths tracks, given the tale essayed here takes place before the band was formed. Instead we get the 1960s songs that heavily influenced the group's sound, and that's a real bonus. The era before the Smiths existed really feels like another place, another time, bereft of something that they ended up filling. One nice bit of detail, the local venue that exhibits posters for an upcoming Duran Duran concert while Morrissey and Marr (Laurie Kynaston, not in it much) start hammering out the more localised and altogether grittier music and lyrics that would eventually form the Smiths, a great snatch of visual storytelling that the film stuffs in. And if you aren't interested in that, there's the gallows humour of young Mozzer to enjoy, an acerbic wit that would put people off and yet find expression in his words put to Marr's tunes.
torrascotia
I was lucky enough to attend the world premier of this at the Edinburgh Film festival closing gala. Now to the actual movie. The story is focused on Morrissey towards the end of the 70s and the struggles he had trying to get his first foot on the ladder as a performer while at the same time being paralyzed with fear of being on stage and dealing with his everyday struggles. In the movie he comes across as a hyper sensitive and shy person but with an underlying streak of arrogance in his own belief in his abilities,despite his lack of confidence in social situations. However the acerbic one liners you would expect from Morrissey are there and when they arrive they are genuine laugh out loud funny. If Smiths fans were hoping to see a film which has a lot of Smiths music in it they will be disappointed. Its similar to the James Brown biopic there's none of the music you may have anticipated being part of the story, which may be a problem for some fans. What we do hear is mostly pop music from the charts from that time. The cast do a great job however without dropping any spoilers for me the film ended almost at the point it was about to get even more interesting, though I doubt there will be any sequel. The film is an interesting character study of one the UKs greatest ever front men from one of the best bands the country has produced, however I am not sure that this film is something either he or his fans will take to their heart. I feel there is a better film on this subject yet to be made. Interesting from as a psychological study but fans may feel shortchanged.
