England Is Mine

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.