THIS engaging and gripping drama directed by Sam Taylor-Wood tells the story of John Lennon before the Fab Four. There would have been no Beatles had it not been for Auntie Mimi who picked up the five-year-old Lennon in her arms and marched home to Liverp



Film Trailers from Filmtrailer.com

THIS engaging and gripping drama directed by Sam Taylor-Wood tells the story of John Lennon before the Fab Four.

There would have been no Beatles had it not been for Auntie Mimi who picked up the five-year-old Lennon in her arms and marched home to Liverpool with him in defiance of both his parents.

Mimi is played meticulously by Kristin Scott Thomas. Both she and Anne-Marie Duff as Lennon's mother, Julia, give Oscar-worthy performances as the two sisters who both love a teenage rebel in their different ways.

The film is a well-observed recreation of late 1950s England. Lennon, in a feisty performance by Aaron Johnson, is our angry young man. A curious set of circumstances caused him to change the sound of British popular music forever.

However, the film stops as the Beatles leave for Hamburg. It does retell a familiar story.

Lennon did not get to know his mother until he was 16. We see him at home in Liverpool at that age, being carefully brought up by his straight laced auntie, suddenly discovering his 'man fond' mum - a stranger to him but whose musicality and rebel spirit he shared.

To be in with a chance of winning one of three pairs of tickets to see Nowhere Boy at Cineworld in Huntingdon, just tell us who directed the film.

Send your answer on an envelope or postcard, with your name, address and telephone number, to: Nowhere Boy Competition, The Hunts Post, 30 High Street, Huntingdon, PE29 3TB or email: Natalie.Bowyer@archant.co.uk

Entries must reach us by January 22.

Usual Archant competition rules apply.

ANGELA SINGER

5/5 stars

.