Nowhere Boy (Blu-ray) (2009)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-Casting Interviews-Crew-Director Deleted Scenes-With Introductions from Director Featurette-Lennons Liverpool Featurette-Making Of Featurette-Anatomy of a Scene Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2009
Running Time	97:36
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Sam Taylor Wood
Studio Distributor	Icon Entertainment	Starring	Julia Baird Matt Greenhalgh Aaron Johnson Kristin Scott Thomas Anne-Marie Duff Thomas Sangster David Morrissey David Threlfall Ophelia Lovibond
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Alison Goldfrapp Will Gregory

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     ...or John Lennon: The Teenage Years. Nowhere Boy is a biopic that focuses on John Lennon's formative teen years (played quite convincingly by Aaron Johnson), during which time he first hooked up with Paul McCartney (Thomas Sangster) and came to terms with his difficult family situation, particularly the return of his mother (Anne-Marie Duff) into his life. The latter is the primary focus of the film.

     Lennon was more or less abandoned by his birth parents and raised by his aunt (Kristin Scott Thomas) and uncle (David Threlfall). Upon discovering his mother lives quite close by with her new husband (David Morrissey) and half sisters that he has never met, Lennon meets her and gets to know her. All the while he keeps these meetings secret from his Aunt, who is more like a real mother to him and has avoided contact with the sister she fell out with years ago. Somewhere along the line he also forms a skiffle band with his classmates and begins the journey towards becoming a musical legend.

     Nowhere Boy effectively uses the distinctly recognisable personalities of the future Beatles members to hook viewers into what would otherwise be a run-of-the-mill coming of age dramedy (albeit a well made one). That hook also proves to be the downfall of the film, as it is forced to drag on for a good 15 minutes past the natural conclusion of its main story in order to reach the point where The Quarrymen transition to The Beatles. Though it is far from a damning fault, the tacked-on feel of the final part of the film spoils what is a fluid narrative up to that point and lessens the emotional resonance the film would have otherwise left with the viewer.

     The chemistry between Aaron Johnson and Kristin Scott Thomas is magnificent. The pair presents a heartfelt and utterly believable parent/child relationship that carries the film. The supporting cast are also quite good, most notably the primary four supports David Threlfall, Anne-Marie Duff, Thomas Sangster and David Morrissey.

     The musical side to the proceedings is well handled. The film features many original Quarrymen tunes, or more popular tunes they covered, performed by the actors themselves (vocally, at least).

     A flawed film but engaging viewing, thanks to some great performances and genuinely interesting source material.

Video

     The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio in 1080p.

     The video is reasonably sharp and clear. There is a mild level of film grain visible in the image in most scenes. There is a reasonable level of shadow detail, although the blacks in the image could do with a little more depth (particularly the many black suits worn in the film which tend to look a little too flat).

     The film deliberately employs a drab, dated colour scheme for the most part. As bland as this sounds, this colour scheme fits the tone of the film well. The colours themselves could use a little more depth however - they don't look bad, but could look better.

     There is no sign of film artefacts or compression artefacts in the image.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     The film features a choice of English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 and English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224 Kbps) audio tracks. Unsurprisingly, the former is light years ahead of the latter in terms of quality. The rest of this review focuses on the former.

     The dialogue is clear and easy to understand. The wonky Liverpudlian accents are never too thick to confuse listeners. The audio is well synchronised to the video.

     The film features covers of many tunes of the day, plenty of which are sung by the leads as The Quarrymen.

     The surrounds are well used to build an engaging sound field. The subwoofer effectively supports the music in the film well. There is nothing particularly fancy about the sound on offer, just a good clean mix.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Featurette Recreating Lennon & The Quarrymen (8:10)

     A featurette that fawns over the wonderful cast. Aaron Johnson and Thomas Sangster, understandably, get the bulk of the coverage here.

Director Interview (10:17)

     A rather dull interview with director Sam Taylor Wood. Nothing particularly resonates in this ten minutes of stating the obvious.

Audio Commentary with Director Sam Taylor Wood

     Sam Taylor Wood offers a reasonably interesting commentary.

Deleted Scenes (9:39)

     A handful of deleted scenes with introductions from the director. Nothing terribly interesting here and it is easy to see why most was trimmed.

Featurette - Lennon’s Liverpool (4:47)

     A brief look at the changes to Liverpool between now and then and the techniques used to bring the Liverpool of John Lennon's era to life on the big screen.

Featurette-Making Of (8:34)

     A press-kit style "making of" featurette. Not bad as far as these things go, but inessential.

Photo Gallery

     Publicity stills. Ho Hum.

Featurette - Anatomy of a Scene

     A rather interesting deconstruction of the scene in which Lennon is finally told the story of why he was raised by his aunt.

Trailer

     A workman-like trailer for the film.

    This film has not yet been released on DVD or Blu-ray in Region 1/Region A.

    A quality drama about the teen life of John Lennon that lets itself down by telling Lennon's story well beyond the point at which the focal part of the film ends.

    Video and audio quality are good, without being great. The extras are reasonably diverse and worthwhile.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall