CONSIDERING they were the most famous band in the world, big screen interest in The Beatles has been oddly scant.

Do filmmakers worry perhaps the four Liverpool lads are already so thoroughly documented there is nothing new to reveal and capture our interest?

The makers of Nowhere Boy clearly don’t think so.

But then maybe that is because, rather than concentrating on the heady days of global mania, they have dug further into the Beatle archives and focused not on the entire foursome, but on one in particular.

It was John Lennon who was pivotal to The Beatles’ creation and phenomenal success.

He was the rebellious, inspired axis around which everything revolved.

And this film, which delves largely into his pre-band years, goes some way towards explaining why.

Nowhere Boy focuses on Lennon as a teenager, precocious and quick-witted, but pulled in polar directions by two women in his life.

Aunt Mimi, a portrait of buttoned-up lower middle class manners, is the central parental figure until the death of his beloved Uncle George throws him into the path of his real mother, Julia.

She could not be less like her sister, a party-loving free spirit, under whose intoxicating spell Lennon willingly succumbs.

From their first real meeting, when Julia takes her estranged boy to Blackpool and treats him more like the latest in a long line of eager suitors than a son, the emotional tug-of-war begins. Both women adore him in their own way.

One is painfully restrained and unable to demonstrate it, the other smothers him with affection and seduces him, at least into loving her, although there is an implication their feelings border on sexual.