Nowhere Boy Review & Tour

Well I have to admit, I went to see the film for research purposes only, expecting to hate it. I even started to take notes to report back on the inaccuracies. The notes were soon dropped as I was drawn into a beautiful poignant story about a tug of love between two sisters and a vulnerable teenager. There are massive liberties taken with the actual story, but once I started thinking of it as a drama rather than a documentary, I loved it..
The three central characters of John, Julia & Mimi are brought to life exactly as I've always imagined them - John and Mimi obviously based on the characters we grew to know, but Anne Marie Duff as Julia portrayed a flawed but fun-loving lovable lady fighting demons which would now be labeled and treated. Post Natal depression? Bi-Polar? Manic depression? Her highs and lows were like a light switching on and off. Kristin Scott Thomas' Mimi was cold, but maybe not as cold as Julia Baird's memoir on which the film is based. Julia distanced herself from the film partly for this reason, and I have to admit, that the cruelty Mimi showed in the book is glossed over with inaccuracies. I did come away liking this intelligent yet outwardly emotionally challenged lady. Kristin Scott Thomas portrays her immaculately as a ice queen with a twinkle in her eye. Now to Aaron Johnson as the young Lennon. He thankfully didn’t parody John with a caricature, but Johnson morphed from awkward teen to the brash, hurtful, hurting, angst ridden adult John in front of our eyes. Absolute raw emotion. A real star of the not too distant future. I also loved David Threlfall as Uncle George. Us Brits will always see him as lovable rogue Frank Gallagher, and his George Toogood Smith was a middle class Frank of the 50's. Hip flask at the ready, having a laugh with John while the two of them tried to avoid upsetting Mimi. Many of you reading this will know the story inside out, and Johns flashbacks to the Blackpool beach as a 5 year old are clever. I wont spoil the tale though for those new to the story.

Some great lines showing the 'Lennon humour':

John: "Why couldnt God have made ME Elvis? " Julia : "Because he was saving YOU for John Lennon!!"

Mimi: "Your sarcasm worries me John!" John: "Why? because it isnt up to YOUR high standards"

Nigel Whalley to Julia "Can you tell your John we've got a gig at Stanley Abbatoir" Julia "You cant play there - you'll get slaughtered"

The 'poetic license' is used to the max throughout, but the spirit of the story is told well. Liverpool is far too clean for the 50's , they miss out the Quarrymen's debut at Rosebery Street, most of the locations are not the real ones, and I ddnt like the Paul and George characters. The focus is on John, not them. 15 year old Paul is nothing like I imagine him...too earnest and I hope he didnt really wear a pink carnation the day he met John. Personally I thought that the 'sex' scene in the park was not the fumblings of a 15 year old, and I don’t reckon the word f*ck was used quite so much in the 1950's ...but maybe that's just my Woolton convent school education showing!
The biggest liberty for me was Julia's funeral funeral scene. John loses it and head butts Pete Shotton, then punches Paul. I doubt they were even present, but the detail that did bug me here was the fact that little Julia & Jacqueline, John's half sisters were there. One of the cruelties of young Julia's tale is that Mimi didn’t even tell the girls their mother was dead for a long time after.