Eng­land is Mine

Who was Steven Patrick Mor­ris­sey before The Smiths? Set in Man­ches­ter dur­ing the years of 1976 to 1982, this unof­fi­cial biopic from first-time direc­tor Mark Gill fol­lows the enig­mat­ic singer-song­writer as he makes his way through a world that doesn’t under­stand his brood­ing mind or brim­ming talent.

In order to help his fam­i­ly through tough eco­nom­ic times, he is forced to work a series of mun­dane jobs, includ­ing one at a tax office. And of course, he finds him­self com­plete­ly dis­con­nect­ed from a world that lacks cre­ativ­i­ty, and makes us believe that our lives must revolve around struc­ture and one way of living.

Jack Low­den plays the icon­ic ​’80s front­man, and although there’s not much phys­i­cal resem­blance, the actor ably cap­tures Morrissey’s man­ner­isms, shy­ness and social awk­ward­ness. It’s these small details that help to paint a vivid pic­ture of this social out­cast pri­or to him blos­som­ing into one of the most cel­e­brat­ed musi­cians of the era. Lowden’s por­tray­al of Mor­ris­sey encom­pass­es a com­bi­na­tion of arro­gance – as he tries to com­pre­hend the mea­sure of his tal­ent – and an inse­cu­ri­ty that holds him back from reach­ing his full potential.

The film doesn’t shy away from its subject’s strug­gle with fit­ting in with the mun­dane stric­tures of soci­ety, as well as his bat­tle with depres­sion. Whether at a live con­cert, or try­ing to get through a nine-to-five job, he’s tor­ment­ed by feel­ings of hope­less­ness. With emo­tive lines from the script like, ​‘I just don’t know how to go on’, and Lowden’s use of body lan­guage (slumped shoul­ders and stiff­ness dur­ing social inter­ac­tion) the film cap­tures how men­tal ill­ness embod­ies your entire life, no mat­ter how much you con­scious­ly attempt to recov­er from it.

Even when Mor­ris­sey finds cre­ative sat­is­fac­tion from his first live gig hav­ing been round­ly reject­ed from the indus­try, he fades straight back into the dark hole and he finds it hard to car­ry on. Hav­ing this con­stant waver­ing of emo­tions through­out the film under­lines the con­stant strug­gle of deal­ing with depres­sion and the fear of know­ing that at any time, the dark­ness from with­in can con­sume every­thing. It’s these moments through­out the film where we become real­ly immersed with the musician’s strug­gle of try­ing to con­vey his artis­tic expres­sion to the peo­ple around him.

Over the years, Mor­ris­sey has kept his sex­u­al­i­ty a pri­vate mat­ter, and this film does no dif­fer­ent. It mere­ly cap­tures his inter­ac­tions with the women in his life – includ­ing his friend and local art stu­dent Lin­der (Jes­si­ca Brown Find­lay). Then he’s com­i­cal­ly forced into dat­ing his co-work­er Chris­tine (Jodie Com­er), who he finds revolt­ing. The script makes sure to keep this part of his life vague, and instead of lin­ger­ing on these awk­ward sex­u­al encoun­ters, the film instead focus­es on the women who made an impact on his life, like Lin­der and his moth­er – the lat­ter being the one who real­ly influ­enced him to stick with his pas­sion for music.

Even though the film’s sound­track doesn’t con­tain a sin­gle song by The Smiths, the aes­thet­ics of Eng­land Is Mine deliv­er a real­is­ti­cal­ly grim-up-north por­tray­al of Morrissey’s life before he made his­to­ry. Direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy Nic Know­land bol­sters the visu­als with a vin­tage sheen, par­tic­u­lar­ly enhanc­ing the gloomi­ness of the city and artis­ti­cal­ly shot night­club scenes. The film cap­tures the soul of Man­ches­ter, while Lowden’s brood­ing por­tray­al of the singer-song­writer unlocks a bit of the mys­tery behind the man who helped to define the ​’80s indie music scene.