TrueJoshNight
Truly Dreadful Film
Matialth
Good concept, poorly executed.
Robert Joyner
The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one
barberic-695-574135
We loved this movie. A real pleasure to watch. Before seeing this movie we had no idea about the background of any of the Beatles. This was educational as well as entertaining. As children of that era it brought back so many memories. Overall the acting was pretty good from all the characters and the production took us back to that time. We will be watching this movie over and over again.
Gre da Vid
The early years (pre-Beatles) of John Lennon. Some of his background and his early-days attitude is surprising since he is primarily known during and post-Beatles. Interesting biopic.
zensixties
I finally got around to seeing this John Lennon Biopic. The beginning gave me hope this would be a high quality accurate film, however it soon lapsed into what I feared it would become: an overdramatized and over the top take on John's relationship with Aunt Mimi and mother Julia. The film promoters promoted this as the ONLY film EVER to depict John's childhood and the formation of the Beatles...I beg to differ. As a Beatles' buff I've seen MANY other biopics, most of them hit and miss like this one. I think the first part of the film was well done, and accurate in depicting John's homelife, and how he got exposed to Elvis, rock, Paul and George. My big qualm again is how they wrote in the fictional dialogue based only loosely on the facts of John's family life. The dialogue soon lapsed into overblown unbelievable high drama, when we know John was MUCH less confrontational than that. So all that garbage with him confronting Julia and Mimi is obviously total fiction (with a few true facts thrown in for good measure). It's unfortunate that they took that low road, since this had the potential to be a quintessential John Biopic, and many aspects WERE authentic, including wardrobe, location, and music. But they chose to make it into a soap-opera-ish version that John himself would have scoffed at. Overall worth seeing, but only if you skip over the high drama segments.Finally passing grades on the acting, however most of he characters don't really remind one of the actual people; i.e. if you didn't KNOW they were supposed to be who they were you wouldn't be able to easily guess.
Ed-Shullivan
Before John Lennon became famous as one of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960's, he was just another teenage boy filled with many unanswered questions as to who he really was, who his natural parents were, and he maintained distant and tormented memories of his very early childhood. Aaron Taylor-Johnson played the teenage John Lennon with convincing authority. Some viewers would say that Aaron Taylor-Johnson did not look like the real young John Lennon, but I would rather have a good portrayal by an actor than someone who just happened to look like John Lennon. The movie has no mention of the world wide fame and future of the Beatles which is just fine with me. Instead it focuses on the early childhood of young John growing up in Liverpool with his Auntie Mimi and Uncle George and his introduction to how music could mesmerize the world. Like a lot of families there are issues with adult siblings and their offspring. John happens to be one of those children affected as he is raised by his Auntie Mimi and Uncle George from the age of 5 to 15. He eventually reconnects with his birth mother and this just adds to John's turmoil, but also provides him with his first taste of a stringed instrument that his mom helps him learn.Kristin Scott Thomas plays Auntie Mimi superbly, as the loving and authoritative mother that John was lacking. His questions about why he came to live with his Aunt and Uncle are gradually realized, and his birth mom and Aunt (who are sisters) put aside their differences and John seems happy to see that they have patched up their differences.We also see how Paul McCartney and George Harrison eventually join John's band originally named the Quarrymen. If you are interested in how the Beatles actually became the Beatles then this movie will not shed any light on that history which came later in their lives when they eventually connect with producer Brian Epstein. I did not consider Nowhere Boy anything special, but it did accomplish what it set out to do which was to provide Beatles fans with insight in to what kind of a life John Lennon had growing up in Liverpool and how like many teenage boys who established a band, got their start in life. I rated this movie only a 5 out of 10 as Nowhere Boy could have been about any teenage boy whose actual childhood living with an aunt and uncle could resemble that of any one of a thousand teenage boys, who came from a broken family. Nowhere Boy is interesting because it happens to be about the early adolescence of John Lennon. This movie allows the viewer to witness John Lennon from simple beginnings as one of three young teenagers from the town of Liverpool who formed a band with their original drummer Pete Best (before Ringo Starr) decide on their own to travel to Hamburg Germany for a few months and see if they could make it in the music industry. And so their historical journey began......
