Half of what I say is meaningless

Nowhere Boy

Crit

The only thing more simplistic than the Oedipal psychology here is the musicology: John's uncle gets him a harmonica just before keeling over dead; his mother teaches him the banjo (cue increasing-proficiency montage); he decides to start a band and his aunt buys him his first guitar; after his skittle band plays a gig, a friend introduces young John to a younger (and left-handed--about which John makes a joke, lest we fail to notice) and more talented guitarist, who in turn introduces a younger yet and more talented yet guitarist, and before you know it, they're off to Hamburg.

It would be a complete waste of time but for the performances of Anne-Marie Duff as the free spirit Julia, barely older in practical terms than the son she abandoned, and Kristin Scott Thomas as Aunt Mimi, the stiff-upper-lip no-nonsense and thus unappreciated in loco parentis, both of whom do the best they can with the clichéd material (and how good to see KST in an English-language film for a change, after all the work she has been doing in France).

Trailers

• The King's Speech--Colin Firth as stammering George VI, Geoffrey Rush as the speech therapist who, I gather, helps save England from Hitler.
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--My relative disappointment with the second in the series notwithstanding, yes.