To me, this movie is perfection.

Good movie but grossly overrated

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Aaron Johnson plays a very convincing John Lennon. The movie catch from start to finish, and afterwords you want more.

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.

What makes for a good biographical epic anyway? Since watching movies is a visceral experience I'd like to think the best movies based on real events like Gandhi (1982) and Amadeus (1984) keep the spirit of the person or event intact. Small embellishments or endearing character traits can sometimes add to the story so long as they don't go overboard. Anyone remember Patch Adams (1998)? How about Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)? Two stories certainly worth telling that were dragged in the muck because of one too many tall tales.Well, I didn't think it was possible but it seems it can work the other way around too. You can have too little embellishment, too little false characterizations and too little drama. Thus was the case of the 2009's look at John Lennon's adolescents Nowhere Boy. Now anyone who knows me knows I'm a pretty big admirer of The Beatles. Not big enough to own all their albums on vinyl but big enough to actually know which album is which. You could say in comparison to others in my generation who have never actually seen them live, I'm a fan. I say all this to put my opinion of Nowhere Boy in a context. You may be a bigger fan than I and loved the film in which case bully for you. I however found it dull.John Lennon's early adolescence consisted of a broken household and a lost identity. Living with close relatives for most of his life, the young John meets his birth mother only after the death of his uncle. His aunt, of course is not a fan of them gallivanting around Liverpool when he should be doing his homework. Nor is she a fan of John starting a band with schoolmates for that matter. Things however reach their climax when John begins to put the puzzle together and confronts his mother with complex questions like "why did you leave me?" "who is my father?" and "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?"Its all pretty heavy and if it were anyone else, the story and its resolution would have worked, but this is John f*****g Lennon! Seeing him breaking a washboard over a friends head in a drunken rage or wagging his bits at school girls make him look like a particularly maladjusted teenager not the symbol of love, peace and awesomeness I've pictured. I'm not saying he wasn't a total jerk in grade school, he likely was, but why is his broken home worth the biographic treatment? If anything it should consist of a very small part of a hero worshiping epic starring Michael Sheen and directed by James Manigold. Not the whole subject of a movie about a poor boy with an Oedipus complex starring the kid from Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008).

Nowhere Boy is a biopic about John Lennon's adolescence, his relationships with his guardian aunt and his birth mother, the creation of his first band, The Quarrymen, and its evolution into The Beatles. It stars Aaron Johnson as the young Lennon together with Thomas Sangster,Anne-Marie Duff and Kristin Scott Thomas.The film is based on a biography written by Lennon's half-sister Julia Baird.Young John is a bright but sharp-tongued boy living in the coastal town of Liverpool during the 1950s with his aunt Mimi and uncle George.John's father walked out on the family when he was four years old, and the boy was given to Mimi to raise, even though his mother, Julia, was still alive. While Mimi's straight-laced nature runs counter to John's more reckless personality, they clearly love one another and the household is thrown into chaos when George dies suddenly. At the funeral, teenage John sees Julia, and learns to his surprise that she lives only a few blocks away from Mimi. John pays her a visit, and Julia gratefully welcomes him back into her life. Julia's personality is a much closer fit to John than Mimi, and she encourages his love for writing and music, teaching him to play the banjo. However, John's renewed relationship with Julia brings up a number of unanswered questions, and causes new tensions between Mimi and John. And as rock & roll becomes the hot new sound of the day, John falls in love with the bold new music and makes a friend who is interested in forming a band, Paul McCartney and George Harrison.If you've seen read or seen the Beatles history in literature or film, you'll adore Nowhere Boy for filling in more blank spaces about the early life particularly that of John Lennon.This biopic succeeds because its creators never wallow in admiration.Also,they keep contrivances to a minimum and has a lead actor in Aaron Johnson who manages to evolve his character rather than imitate the person he is portraying.He was simply restrained and has a low-key approach in his performance.Overall,expect new insights about the young Lennon in this film.