Sid and Nancy

Sid & Nancy, in its first half, offers an immersive plunge into the punk lifestyle, capturing with wit and verve its anti-authoritarian sneer and DIY ethos, before then slowly circling the drain during a dour second half given over to disillusion and dissolution.

Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb dramatically and unforgettably burst from nowhere onto the screen with their searing portrayals of Sex Pistol Sid Vicious and American groupie Nancy Spungen. Their performances in this embellished docudrama are so intense and definitive that they leave little room for any other memories of these doomed junkie lovers.

A shockingly effective portrait of the destructive power of drugs told through the true-life story of English punk rocker Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, the American groupie who became his lover.

Alex Cox’s retelling of the Sex Pistols’ story from the point of view of Sid (Gary Oldman) and girlfriend Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb) works as both spirited punk biopic and tragically touching love story. It’s a hard film to watch at times, as Vicious plunges deeper into his heroin-induced slump, but told with skill and compassion, which make up for the onscreen squalor.

For viewers fascinated by punk's buffoonish energy and its slashing, guerrilla warfare against pop culture, Sid and Nancy offers a compelling portrait of two pathetic souls who overdosed on pain and unhappiness.

Sid and Nancy rages with a vitriolic fury which eventually becomes tiresome.

The only thing that is sustained in Sid and Nancy is a tone of clinical disinterest that leaves you asking why Cox would want to make a movie about them. By the end, you know more about Sid and Nancy than you care to, and about Alex Cox, quite a bit less than you'd like.

Nearly fifty years ago, the first wave of British punk found its star-crossed lovers in Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. A pair of vacant-eyed kids who made a lot of noise, flaunted their disdain for the establishment, burnt the candle at both ends and rapidly poisoned one another. This cinematic dramatization recounts the entirety of their turbulent, fleeting love affair while only occasionally stopping to notice the burgeoning international scene that sprouted around their bodies. Nobody involved in this production seems to like the end result. I don't blame them. Johnny Rotten calls it a wildly inaccurate "Peter Pan fantasy." Gary Oldman is embarrassed by the starring role, his very first. Director Alex Cox freely admits his disdain for the real-life figures behind the story, labeling them sellouts and idiots. He does their cinematic counterparts no added favors. These doomed punk rock flare-outs don't grow or evolve, they just wallow and regress. Whether it's through Johnny's nihilistic lifestyle choices or Nancy's possessive manipulations, big dumb Sid is wielded like a weapon, pointed at a target and fired in the name of personal gain. With very little agency of his own, he flies as true as that metaphorical bullet. His Sex Pistols bandmates want to stomp dents in expensive cars? He'll lace up the steel-toed boots. His girl likes to experiment with drugs? Now he's an overnight junkie. When they're clean enough to see through the fog (very infrequently), the couple does express regret at this vicious cycle and their mutual inability to break it, but those realizations are scarcely a flash of clarity between glazed highs. The film follows that same repetitive, destructive pattern. It gives us hints of something more, but never manages to break free of its weird, punishing, voyeuristic urges. As Sid and Nancy circle the toilet bowl of hopeless addiction, we watch them give up. They quit on everything: the music, their friends, the world, each other... and then it’s over, and we’re left to wonder if it actually meant anything at all. It’s a numb, soulless series of flat observations, a whole mess of sound and fury that ultimately signifies nothing. Even the music has no spirit, with the most blistering cuts from Never Mind the Bollocks neutered by bland recreations and fake-showy stage performances. Anarchy in the UK it’s not. Sid and Nancy feels more like a submission.