By Mike Pukay and Moira Romano

“Nowhere Boy”, nominated for 4 BAFTA film awards, is a biopic about John Lennon’s formative years as a musician. This is a story of a young man searching for direction in a life that would culminate in the creation of one of the 20^th century’s greatest icons.  Directed by Sam Taylor-Wood and her first feature, the film is being re-released in honor of what would have been Lennon’s 70^th birthday. Lennon’s life was full of all the epic trials and tribulations of a tragic mythological hero. Aaron Johnson (Kick Ass) has the formidable job of portraying an adolescent Lennon discovering his calling. “Nowhere Boy” is based on a book by Lennon’s sister Julia Baird. There is also a story behind the story as Sam Taylor-Wood at 42 fell in love with Johnson, the teenage star of the movie, and gave birth to their daughter. Lennon’s muse Yoko Ono gave this film her blessing and released the rights for the closing Lennon song “Mother”. The movie also has important and intimate details provided by Paul McCartney.

Lennon was raised by his Aunt Mimi (Kirsten Scott Thomas) his mother’s sister and Uncle George (David Threlfall). Scott Thomas plays the stern, loving aunt who inadvertently drives him back to his biological mother after Uncle George dies. John’s mother, the antithesis of her sister, had given him up to her sister as a baby. She was a free spirit who could not manage to raise the young John.  When Uncle George dies, John is left to struggle with a tumultuous storm of emotions complicated by a twist of events in which he discovers his biological mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff) living just a few blocks away from John.  John’s mother develops an intense relationship with her son, which is at times almost Oedipul. Her musical talent and exuberant love of life is the impetus for John to develop his own passion for music.  Her disposition contrasts with John’s legal guardian, his aunt Mimi whose cold, stoic discipline drives John out of her home and into the arms of his mother as he pursues his music.  It is between the hopes of these two women that we see the battle for John’s destiny unfold.

Johnson brings an intense performance to his role as the patriarchal Beatle, drifting between zen-like serenity and tempestuous rage. Taylor-Wood recreates the era with the incredible attention to detail required for a period film, and chooses camera angles that create a sense of disorientation that underlines John’s lack of direction, without slowing the movie’s pace.  The soundtrack combines music from the epoch as well as an original score by Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory that effectively sets the tone and mood of the film.

This film provides an insight into an icon so familiar yet clearly masked by his public persona and lost in the obsession of a generation.