Peanut Butter Reviews: Nowhere Boy US Trailer vs UK Trailer

00000As if the U.S. didn’t look bad enough already, with its imperialistic fix toward anything non-American, we’ve managed to regurgitate our perspective all over the already exquisite trailer for the British film Nowhere Boy. The official U.K. trailer for the film is a true testament to the power of storytelling whereas the official U.S. trailer reads as another superfluous shrine to the indestructible mountain that is: “Beatles mania.”

The U.K. trailer begins with John Lennon played by, Aaron Johnson, shown as a young man, alone, and looking out at the water, bathed in the light blue tint of what appears to be the early hours of the morning. The voice over begins to explain that John is coping with divorced parents, and being raised by his aunt Mimi, played by Kristen Scott Thomas.

We see 16-year-old John and his mother, Julia, played by Anne-Marie Duff, meet for the first time. Julia plays a vital role here, someone who caused John pain but who is also able to teach him the value of music—“strum from the wrist” she says, urging him to take her seriously as she teaches him the banjo.

The various shots of John being yelled at, punching a wall in tears, and of Julia looking at herself in the mirror crying, are set to the haunting Screaming Jay Hawkins tune: “I Put a Spell on You.” These details give the personal story tints of darkness and tension, which are, at times lifted by the joy of music.

These joyful moments are the ones featuring John’s good friend Paul McCartney played by Thomas Sangster. There are various shots of John and Paul writing music together, performing, and talking. After Paul comes along, Johnson’s facial expressions begin to bring out the growing, hopeful and deeply pensive sides of Lennon’s character.

With a title like Nowhere Boy, spinning off The Beatles song “Nowhere Man,” a nod to The Beatles is obligatory. So, the onscreen text urges us to “meet the boy, behind the man, behind The Beatles.”

However, the U.K. trailer always manages to revert back to the importance of Julia, Mimi, John, and the tense relationships they have with one another. “You chose to take my son” Julia says to Mimi, voice breaking and full of regret. The heightened emotions here are important, giving us insight to the ups and downs of Lennon’s affair with music.

In the U.S. trailer, the first thing we hear is the cheering and applause of an audience which, puts the idea of performance front and center, instead of characters and story. It’s a great idea—except this isn’t a musical or an episode of Glee where everything is performance driven.

Here, Julia is not properly introduced as John’s mother until some anonymous young boy says: “I found out where your mother lives.” All the shots of Julia until that point make her look more like John’s lover. There are also significantly less shots of her, which make Julia’s character less important. John’s relationship with his aunt is unclear also, as Mimi is introduced by a series of unnecessary shots, repeating variations of the line: “glasses. Glasses John, glasses.” Paul has a bit more dialogue and screen time in this version showing their relationship as the most important one in the entire film.

In this U.S. version, John is a rebel presented with less emotion, and more aggression, as he appears to be just another self-involved teenager. Here, there are shots of John looking at his reflection confidently, which give him a stronger sense of cockiness. He also jumps on top of buses, gets suspended, fights, and has clever comebacks toward authority figures.

Perhaps the biggest cop out of all is the use of The Quarrymen song “In Spite of All the Danger.” The song is beautiful, fits the time frame, and is one of the first songs John and Paul wrote together. However, with this version’s emphasis on performance, The Beatles, and the Lennon and McCartney duo, it just comes off as another excuse to reference The Beatles and their history instead of doing what’s best for the trailer and the story of the film beneath it.

The bitter icing on the cake of the U.S. official trailer for Nowhere Boy, is that they use the same obligatory Beatles nod through onscreen text, except of course, in true American fashion, the typography is more grandiose and it’s deemed necessary to use yet another Beatles reference by adding the phrase: “experience the evolution of the revolution.” I think if we want evolution, then America should start the revolution, and accept that their film trailers can’t change the world.

I give the U.S. official trailer: 1.5 slices of bread out of 5.