Sid and Nancy
Sid and Nancy: Love Kills

UK 1986
produced by
Eric Fellner, Margaret Matheson (executive) for Zenith Entertainment, Initial Pictures
directed by Alex Cox
starring Gary Oldman, Chloe Webb, David Hayman, Debby Bishop, Andrew Schofield, Xander Berkeley, Perry Benson, Tony London, Sandy Baron, Sy Richardson, Edward Tudor-Pole, Biff Yeager, Courtney Love, Rusty Blitz, John Spaceley, Coati Mundi, Ed Pansullo, Vincent J.Isaac, J.Steven Markus, Anne Lambton, Sallie Anne Field, Kathy Burke, Sara Sugarman, Mark Monero, Michele Winstanley, Andy Bradford, Tom Little, Barbara Coles, Pete Lee-Wilson, Graham Fletcher-Cook, Stuart Fox, Victoria Harwood, Jude Alderson, James Snell, Niven Boyd, Miguel Sandoval, Richard W.Baker III, Patti Tippo, John M.Jackson, Peter McCarthy, Desirée Erasmus, Gloria LeRoy, Milton Selzer, Bruce J.Magrane, Stefanie Auerbach, Jeff Kumer, Bradley Lieberman, Tricia Barholome, Jeanne McCarthy, John Snyder, Ron Moseley, Fox Harris, Iggy Pop, Suchi Asano, Dan Wul (= Pray for Rain), Mitch Dean, the Circle Jerks, Angel Dove, Sherice Prince, Kelly Louise Lynn, Sri Johnston, Jamie L.Crowe, Julie Marie Capone, Julie St.Claire, Raymond Rosario, Daniel Louis Rivas, Favian Xavier, Al Alli, Bob Ellis, Peyton Kirkpatrick, Jimmy Emig, Alexander Folk, Dick Rude, G.J.Thompson, Lawrence Bell jr, Rome Jefferson jr, Cat Vicious
written by Alex Cox, Abbe Wool, music by Pray for Rain, Joe Strummer, the Pogues, songs by the Sex Pistols, the Circle Jerks

review by
Mike Haberfelner

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Sid Vicious (Gary Oldman) is found in his hotelroom, high on heroin, besides the body of his girlfriend Nancy Spungent (Chloe Webb). From this point, the movie goes back to the time when Sid first met Nancy, when his punkrock band, the Sex Pistols, really started out and grew bigger and bigger, and he with the band, while she was an American groupie with a drug problem who introduced him to heroin. This led to the Sex Pistols' performances deteriorating, since Sid, who wasn't even good at the bass guitar to begin with, showed up to their shows out of it more and more often. Basically though, Sid stayed with the Pistols not because he was good friends with Johnny Rotten (Andrew Schofield) - who got more and more fed up with Sid's excesses anyways - but because manager Malcolm McLaren (David Hayman) thought him to be the epitomy of punk rock, the most authentic - if least talented and dependable - member of the band.

Yet even McLaren thinks Sid should cut back on the drugs, and he tells his assistant Phoebe (Debby Bishop) to take care of Sid and tries to split him and Nancy up when he refuses to take her on tour to the USA with the Pistols.

In the USA however, the band breaks up, mainly due to Sid's unreliability and his continued escapades, and with the Sex Pistols gone, Sid and Nancy reunite and try to cash in on his fame, even if without the Sex Pistols, Sid's lack of actual talent and his drugged out state show more and more, and in the end he and Nancy can't afford more than a rundown room in rundown Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan, where Sid, totally stoned, eventually stabs Nancy in a rowe, then watches television all night ... until one of his dealers tips the police off anonymously.

Sid is arrested for murder but released on bail, and all he wants to do is eat pizza - even if it is in a rundown pizza place in Long Island. And there, Sid has to realize the world has moved on, the street kids are no longer afraid of him and listen to hip hop, a music he no longer can relate to. But then, Nancy arrives in a limousine and invites him in ...

A title card though tells us he actually died from a heroin overdose while out on bail ...

Thanks to director Alex Cox, one of the few filmmakers who actually understood the punk rock spirit, Sid and Nancy has become a bio pic like no other, a film that remains unapologetic about its deeply flawed lead characters without celebrating their lifestyle, a film that doesn't necessarily just stick to historical facts but fills the story with allegoric, poetic imagery, subversive satire (like Sy Richardson's anarchic Methadone doctor or Miguel Sandoval's A&R man who hasn't got the slightest idea about punk rock) and cartoon-like scenes, that's incredibly well-paced to keep the tension up throughout, and that, despite the tragic aspects of the story, is wildly entertaining.

A great film, and one only wishes more film biographies could be like that.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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