Nowhere Boy: Pretty Good Film About Young John Lennon

Despite its ill-advised title, Nowhere Boy is worth seeing for anyone who is a Beatle fan (anyone over 18 that is--it has a couple of John's precocious "romantic" encounters). The focus of the plot is on the conflict between John's mother, who apparently turned him over to her sister as a small boy, and the sister. The mother seems a bit over the top, but the uptight Aunt Mimi is perfectly played by Kristin Scott Thomas, who makes a potential cartoon into a fully rounded and sympathetic character largely on the basis of her wonderfully expressive face. The kid who plays John (Aaron Johnson) is pretty good, but John is such a mixed bag at this point (part loyal son, part creep) that he's hard to get your head around. And, yes, it does include the epoch-making scene where John and Paul meet--happily understated, and the unfolding relationship of 17-year-old John and the 15-year-old Paul very nicely done. Has anybody else seen this?