England Is Mine 2017

Whilst England is Mine treats Smith’s fans with the Moz’s early influences, it lacks the depth of Morrissey’s character. Jack Lowden acts out a cuddly Morrissey persona that seems to belong in another film. Nethertheless, do watch this film to see it’s better moments in the second half.

This is a movie about Steven Patrick Morrissey (who would later become Morrissey, frontman to the seminal 80s art pop band The Smiths) not singing.

While the film details the lad's pre-fame roots as a giant stereotype filled with neuroses and ego, England is Mine doesn't feel like Morrissey's story. It feels like someone else telling us Morrissey's story--and not doing a good job of it, at that. The recreated Manchester of the late 70s / early 80s looks as superficial as the costuming and hair design, and the character's pouty hubris is more grating than fingernails on a cheese grater.

Do we really need a cliche ridden biopic to learn that young Morrissey was an average moody teenaged pretentious twat with a hatred of people, dislike for work and a love of himself? Or is that something we already suspected before-hand...

For the Morrissey in all of us, this soulful and artful film reminds us that it is possible to escape a humdrum existence.

This is sadly like a big list of check boxes for Smiths fans, at least the first half. The second half of the film was slightly better than the first, but fiction and a stereotypical view of Morrissey's youth did not help this film.

Would love to see the second part to this story told through the eyes of Johnny Marr. Now that would make for great cinama.