Worth: $6.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Jack Lowden, Jessica Brown-Findlay, Laurie Kynaston
Intro:
All-in-all, you’d be better off having a quick skim of Mozza’s wikipedia page.
Ahhh Morrissey, arguably music’s greatest paradox – exceptionally talented and important figure in music’s history… but a total and utter knob – and not just in a “ohh come on, all creative geniuses are a bit shit as people” kind of way, more in a kind of racist, victim-blaming “the world owes me everything” kind of way. The Smiths were of course, one of the greatest and most successful post-punk/Brit-pop bands in history, and their polarising frontman Morrissey (alongside guitarist Johnny Marr) was the primary cause of that success.
Mozza was indeed a fascinating character. He famously hated music videos and never allowed for any of The Smiths discography to have one. He was in constant opposition and feuds with other iconic creatives about why he was far superior to them, most famously with fellow musical prodigy Robert Smith of The Cure. He once spent a staggering three months holed-up in his bedroom, covering his windows with garbage bags in a near catatonic state.
But forget all that for a sec, because the film doesn’t actually cover any of that stuff you’d really want to see.
Written and directed by the Oscar and BAFTA nominated (not to mention fellow Manchester kid) Mark Gill, England Is Mine is the unofficial (more on that later) biopic about the early days of Morrissey, featuring precisely two minutes of Morrissey singing and 97 minutes of Morrissey moping.
The narrative follows Steven Patrick Morrissey, a shy boy from 1970s Manchester who wants to write and sing. But as a young man, his voice goes no further than the NME (the famous New Musical Express) letters-to-the-editor page and his dead-end accounting office walls. When the punk scene explodes, Steven discovers there’s more to life than slagging off local bands in the press, and with the help of strong women, the young Morrissey embarks on a journey to become himself in a world that’s trying to make him just like everybody else.
There are quite a few problems with this film, the first being that this is an unauthorised biopic. In fact, Morrissey’s mum and friends have publicly issued statements distancing the artist from the film. Even the singer’s close childhood friend James Maker – who performed at some early Smiths gigs Bez-style and later of projects Raymonde and RPLA – has weighed in saying the project is “disingenuous,” “insulting,” and “historical fiction.”
The second, is that all the supporting characters are terribly thin versions of their actual selves. Now that would be fine if these were just fictional or even real but unremarkable people, but when you have punk-rock feminist icon and all around revolutionary bad-bitch Linder Sterling (played competently by Jessica Brown-Findlay) represented as little more than Morrissey’s love interest who moves to London and breaks his frail heart, then we have problems. Additionally, Smith’s co-founder and creative genius in his own right Johnny Marr is present but doesn’t even have any bloody lines until the last three mins of the film!
What might be the biggest punch in the bollocks however, is the soundtrack. You would think that a film about ‘70s/’80s Brit-pop would have a killer soundtrack, right? If so, England Is Mine will surely disappoint. To be fair, the film is about Morrissey’s pre-fame formative years, and so having The Smiths greatest hits wouldn’t have exactly made any sense. But the late ‘70s and early ‘80s were a magical time in music, and it would have made all the difference to the film’s charm-factor to have some tracks from Bowie, Velvet Underground, the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie Sioux – take your pick! This major gap could be attributed to issues with licensing, but that shouldn’t have been a problem for someone like Gill, and therefore seems like more of a lapse in judgement on his part.
The only redeeming factor is Jack Lowden’s performance as Morrissey, who doesn’t particularly look like him, but has his exact mannerisms, posture and wobbly voice completely nailed. Lowden’s expert delivery of Morrissey’s trademark charisma is in fact, one of the only reasons to get through the film. Other performances by the likes of Jessica Brown-Findlay who plays Linder Sterling or Laurie Kynaston who plays Johnny Marr, are passable, however the actors are never given much opportunity to properly round out their real-life characters.
Ultimately, England Is Mine drips with anticipation; like someone holding a pin to a balloon without ever actually popping it. The major problem is that those who don’t really know of or appreciate The Smiths won’t be bothered to devote 95 minutes to a film focused solely on the boring part of his life before he was famous. And those die-hard, purist fans who would usually love to see the makings of the Pope of Mope, won’t put much stock in it (if they endeavour to watch it all) being that so many of Mozza’s closest friends and fam have written it off as wildly inaccurate soapy trash. All-in-all, you’d be better off having a quick skim of Mozza’s wikipedia page. It’s much quicker, and far more entertaining.