This past year I finally had a chance to view the film Nowhere Boy on DVD. I can understand how the 2009 film came out of a necessity to illuminate the childhood and adulthood awakening of John Lennon. There is so much that is still unknown about The Beatles as a whole. There have been so many books written and films made which have illuminated certain aspects of each and every person who were associated with the relatively short-lived dynamic musical group. Their reputation and creative output is legendary and self-evident. No other band member, however-, no matter what the tragedies- had the type of early life (and early death) take on such a tone of a Greek tragedy as that of John Lennon.
For those who only know the bare facts of Lennon's life story, this film will impart the truth with raw emotions, eyes-open crushing pathos, grief and passions. Even from the beginning he was an artist yearning to experience what he most wanted to express- almost violently in Lennon's case- through his chosen medium. We are lucky that Lennon's tool became music.
Essentially, raised by a well-grounded aunt (which was portrayed exceptionally by Kristin Scott Thomas) but awakened at the dawning of adulthood by a wayward mother(Anne-Marie Duff), his foothold slipped at a crucial time and the truth of his life came close to crushing him. His success as a rock star conveyed a type of salvation borne only to our media superstars and superheroes. It didn't prepare him or his loved ones, for that matter, of his equally grievous exit from life. That story would require another film. In any case, this cinematic effort helps us to understand the triumph of John's contribution to rock music in a way that no writer of a book or magazine could really get across to the fans.
Lennon's quotes, which have been repeated until they took on the proportion of a credo which held the genre of rock together, melt under the light of this film. Perhaps it's because his words held the kind of bravado that credos are built upon. His work was so unique, with and without The Beatles, that it has never been surpassed on that premise. Nowhere Boy strips away the mystery that not a single book written about The Beatles ever has and the dialogue gives us a new Lennon to consider,- the vulnerable one.
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