Movie Review ~ Nowhere Special

You only have to read the short plot synopsis for Nowhere Special to feel your heartstrings being aggressively tugged at, and it’s natural to be resistant to that kind of experience.  It’s one thing to go into a movie not knowing it will wind up with a tear-stained finale, but it takes an entirely different kind of resolve to put yourself through that heartache.  I almost have to psych myself up to watch a movie that is a sure thing in the ugly cry department, think Terms of Endearment or Steel Magnolias (what can I say? I’m an easy target.)

In some ways, I’m glad writer/director Uberto Pasolini gets the tough information out of the way early on in his film, which was inspired by a true story.  Released during an era that puts too much value in tales of superhuman heroics and destabilizing conquest, its quiet narratives like Nowhere Special which offer audiences a poignant, quiet contrast to the bombastic.  Channeling a classic theme of parental devotion, the film opts for simplicity and raw emotions instead of sweeping melodrama built to milk your tear ducts for every drop.

In the film, James Norton (Little Women) plays John, a window cleaner in Northern Ireland, and a single-dad to 3-year-old son Michael (Daniel Lamont).  Recently diagnosed with a terminal illness (that is never named) and given mere months to live, John is working with an adoption agency and social worker, Shona (Eileen O’Higgins, Brooklyn), to locate a new home for Michael before he is too ill to parent his child.  As the clock mercilessly ticks, John grapples with how to tell his son about his impending death and if it’s even suitable to explain something so profound to such a young child.  

Without sidestepping the inherent heartbreak, Pasolini stays true to the highly emotional stakes he establishes from the outset.  The harrowing premise sets up John to meet a handful of potential families that could take the boy in, none of them being his idea of “perfect,” but all appearing to be households that would provide a life for Michael that, on the surface, will be an improvement over the one he is living now. John also wants to find the potential family he connects with, and that’s a match that he fears he’ll never see.

An actor who has never quite been on the A-list but hovered around the B- to B playground for several years, Norton has taken on several challenging roles over the past decade, including a stage adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara’s astonishing 2015 novel A Little Life for which he was nominated for an Olivier Award.  In Nowhere Special, Norton gives his put-upon character a world-weariness that never devolves into a defeatist attitude.  Even as we see him getting progressively more ill, he does his best to keep up appearances for the sake of his son.  

Working with child actors is tricky, but young Lamont had to have been especially challenged due to his age and comprehension of the material.  How much of the performance is the disarmingly natural Lamont acting, reacting, or repeating back lines is anyone’s guess. Still, however the performance was achieved, it’s highly effective and bolstered by Norton’s supportive presence.  Lamont trusts Norton, and the veteran actor returns the favor, always making Lamont the focus of any scene they share. 

A former investment banker, Pasolini arrived on the film scene producing the 1997 hit The Full Monty and received good notices for his 2013 film Still Life, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival.  Nowhere Special also premiered in Venice…in 2020.  Don’t take its debut now four years later as a sign of its quality, though. Still, its winding path to distribution is likely a testament to its need to find the proper studio to handle its unassuming beauty. Though it reserves the right to pluck your heartstrings through manipulation when it wants to, it lets the sincerity of the performances do that heavy lifting.  While the premise may be less than subtle, the emotional wallop it delivers in its final minutes still catches you off guard.  That’s something special.