Lennon biopic ‘Nowhere Boy’ to close London fest

UPDATE: “Nowhere Boy” producer, Kevin Loader, addresses Jeff Wells’s concerns about the film’s non-appearance at earlier autumn festivals quite reasonably. He explains that the post-production schedule means the film simply won’t be complete in time for Venice or Toronto. I thought as much.

This is an interesting development. Lately, the London Film Festival has chosen to wrap up with big-name films, many of them already powered by previous festival hype — “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Babel” and “Good Night, and Good Luck” have all been given the closing night slot in recent years.

By comparison, the news of this year’s closing film, Sam Taylor-Wood’s debut feature “Nowhere Boy,” comes slightly out of left field. I’ve been eagerly anticipating Taylor-Wood’s portrait of the young John Lennon, which is being shepherded by The Weinstein Company, for a while now. For many others, however, I suspect it hasn’t really been on the radar.

Jeff Wells, who has also been invested in the project for some time, sees this news as a major worry — the fact that it’s premiering at London rather than Venice or Toronto, he thinks, means something is wrong.

I don’t share his concern. Even the recent LFF closing films that haven’t been embraced as warmly as the aforementioned ones — “I Heart Huckabees” and “The Darjeeling Limited” come to mind — are hardly embarrassments. (Indeed, one of them is a work of genius, but that’s another discussion.)

Fest director Sandra Hebron is a savvy programmer with good taste: she’s highly unlikely to pick a disaster for a prominent slot. This comes on the heels of the equally unexpected selection of “Fantastic Mr. Fox” as the festival opener — Hebron is taking some risks this year by picking films without previous festival cache to bookend the festival, but that’s what she needs to do to raise her own fest’s profile.

(And while it was a major title that didn’t didn’t need the slow accumulation of festival buzz, it’s worth mentioning that choosing London rather than Toronto for its world premiere did “Frost/Nixon” no harm last year.)

On paper, I see no reason to doubt “Nowhere Boy,” starting with the strength of the story material itself. Taylor-Wood, one of the leading lights of the Young British Artists movement (which also gave us “Hunger” director Steve McQueen), has demonstrated exciting filmmaking chops both on her music video work and last year’s wonderful short “Love You More.”

She has an ace team of collaborators on her side, including screenwriter Matt Greenhaigh (“Control”) and DP Seamus McGarvey (“Atonement”). I’ve also been hearing second-hand word (yes, pinch of salt and all that) that Kristin Scott Thomas, in the role of Lennon’s Aunt Mimi, has something special up her sleeve. Let’s wait and see.