38
England Is Mine is a tour ride through a legend’s formative years that’s more concerned with the familiar signposts than the intricacies of the scenery along the way.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
60
It's a muted affair all in all; the script thin and relatively drama-free, which proves irritating considering the assured performances and flashes of brilliance that do flair up.
58
It’s a biopic that ends before its subject’s life-changing work even really begins, so those without the knowledge to fill in the gaps will almost certainly leave wondering why they should care.
60
Lowden and Findlay excel in their roles, but Mark Gill’s Moz-movie needed more: both more music and more “people who are young and alive”.
40
The Hollywood Reporter by Neil Young
Mark Gill's feature debut England Is Mine struggles to evoke the atmosphere of its setting — Manchester, 1976-1982 — and to bring its tantalizingly enigmatic subject into satisfying focus.
40
England Is Mine is fussy and prudish — about erotic longing, and about the rock ‘n’ roll that gives form to it.
60
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
It’s decently and honestly acted by Jack Lowden, who keeps the film alive, but it somehow winds up being a story about always following your dream and never giving up.
50
This cannot be about music if you don’t have the rights. So there’s virtually no on-stage performance content. That means you have to downplay the significance of meeting the big musical collaborators of his life, too.
40
It takes a special kind of biopic to reduce its subject to the least imaginably interesting version of itself.
50
Screen International by Wendy Ide
Without the crucial performance element – we only see Morrissey on stage once – this ultimately feels like a taster; a prelude to the main story.