Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, Nowhere Boy follows The Beatles’ John Lennon (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) as a teenager finding his way, learning to play guitar, and meeting future bandmates Paul McCartney and George Harrison.
Nowhere Boy explores the little-known family dynamic that played out in Lennon’s life before he toured with The Beatles. After being raised by his Aunt Mimi (a fantastically uptight Kristin Scott Thomas), Lennon meets and gets to know his free-spirited biological mother (played by Anne-Marie Duff), who abandoned him as a 5-year-old.
In other hands, a pre-Beatles story might concentrate on the boys club that often shadows rock movies. However, Taylor-Johnson has crafted a point of view that looks at the various influences that the mothers, mother-mentors, and girlfriends had in shaping the band. While the music set pieces depict the garage-band nature of the band before they became The Beatles we know today, the film’s performances show Lennon’s magnetic quality and where that charisma might have came from.
Nowhere Boy can be watched instantly on Netflix, iTunes and Amazon Instant Video.
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