England Is Mine

At last, a musical biopic that doesn't throw in cheap references, nor equally cheap laughs, and instead gives us a sober, realistic and not always warm character study of the formative years of one of Britain's best loved singer-songwriters. But be warned - if you have no interest in Steven Patrick Morrissey, indeed if you have a passing love for the band and aren't too bothered in learning how he came up with the lyrics that he did, then much of ENGLAND IS MINE might not do a lot for you. This film is definitely one for the proper fans, and for those of us in that position it's a real treat.

Lots to love about this one. Jack Lowden might not look a lot like Morrissey but he gets across very well the sense of alienation and perpetual disappointment that surrounds our hero. He's bored and unfulfilled with every aspect of his life, feeling like there's something more out there and yet too shy and not forthcoming enough to go after it. That lack of belonging is something many young people experience - I know I did - and Morrissey is kind of the Dean of that time in life, and Lowden nails it. His friendship with Linder (fantastic Jessica Brown Findlay) shows him finding a rare kindred spirit, and he reacts to the lost chance of success he arrives at briefly with Adam Lawrence's Billy Duffy by doing what we would all like to and retreating to his bedroom.

The period detail is excellent - you get the vision of late 70s/early 80s Manchester as a bit of a dive, crammed with lost souls and angry voices, from which Morrissey feels entirely apart. Lovely touches, like the cracked, single pane windows upon which rain hammers, add to to reality.

The choice of musical numbers is another bonus. There are no Smiths tracks, given the tale essayed here takes place before the band was formed. Instead we get the 1960s songs that heavily influenced the group's sound, and that's a real bonus. The era before the Smiths existed really feels like another place, another time, bereft of something that they ended up filling. One nice bit of detail, the local venue that exhibits posters for an upcoming Duran Duran concert while Morrissey and Marr (Laurie Kynaston, not in it much) start hammering out the more localised and altogether grittier music and lyrics that would eventually form the Smiths, a great snatch of visual storytelling that the film stuffs in.

And if you aren't interested in that, there's the gallows humour of young Mozzer to enjoy, an acerbic wit that would put people off and yet find expression in his words put to Marr's tunes.

"England Is Mine" isn't a movie about Morrissey (the actor doesn't even look like him) or The Smiths. If you're looking for a film about them, you won't find it here (besides, like many other movies about real musicians, this one wasn't allowed to use real music either).

Who has not looked for a job and, at the same time, was afraid to find it? Who has not preferred to do anything instead of risking doing something for fear of succeeding? These, among a few others, seem to be the main questions of this film. It doesn't offer any answer, however.

If you want to see a guy rejecting all the women that are given to him, this is a movie for you.

The film could've been better.

Let's set some axioms before we can appraise this work. 1) The Smiths were the greatest rock'n'roll band of all time. 2) Morrissey is the world's greatest living poet. From that axiomatic base, there can be nothing but high hopes for a film about Morrissey's beginnings. Sadly, this film is a non-starter on all counts, because any Smiths fan knows going into it that Morrissey has always refused to license the rights to the songs after that well-known 'How Soon is Now' debacle. Therefore, we can expect to hear none of the music and none of the lyrics. So, what is the point of making the film? The answer is, 'There is no point at all'. And what is the point of watching the film? The answer is, 'There is no point at all'. Let's get one thing absolutely clear; 'Control' this is not; '24 Hour Party People' this is not; 'Nowhere Boy' this is not. Suffice to say, a watchable, entertaining film this is not.

I was lucky enough to attend the world premier of this at the Edinburgh Film festival closing gala. Now to the actual movie. The story is focused on Morrissey towards the end of the 70s and the struggles he had trying to get his first foot on the ladder as a performer while at the same time being paralyzed with fear of being on stage and dealing with his everyday struggles. In the movie he comes across as a hyper sensitive and shy person but with an underlying streak of arrogance in his own belief in his abilities,despite his lack of confidence in social situations. However the acerbic one liners you would expect from Morrissey are there and when they arrive they are genuine laugh out loud funny. If Smiths fans were hoping to see a film which has a lot of Smiths music in it they will be disappointed. Its similar to the James Brown biopic there's none of the music you may have anticipated being part of the story, which may be a problem for some fans. What we do hear is mostly pop music from the charts from that time. The cast do a great job however without dropping any spoilers for me the film ended almost at the point it was about to get even more interesting, though I doubt there will be any sequel. The film is an interesting character study of one the UKs greatest ever front men from one of the best bands the country has produced, however I am not sure that this film is something either he or his fans will take to their heart. I feel there is a better film on this subject yet to be made. Interesting from as a psychological study but fans may feel shortchanged.

What a disappointing pile of garbage. This film could have been so much more but all it did was take a few key events from wikipedia and make a movie. "If you have five seconds to spare, then I'll tell you the story of my life / Sixteen, clumsy and shy / That's the story of my life." The film was Clumsy in the making, shy in the facts and was a waste of more than 5 seconds of my life.