Surrounded but not drowned out by the noise of this week’s big new releases is a smaller, more modest film which packs a hefty emotional punch. Nowhere Special, the first film from director Uberto Pasolini since 2013, is based on the true story of a single father who, diagnosed with terminal cancer, sets out to find a new family to care for his young son.
Focussing very much on the father/son relationship, many of the scenes in the film are two-handers between James Norton who plays the father and Daniel Lamont as his son. He was just four years old when the film was made and, talking to The People’s Movies’ Freda Cooper, Norton explained how everything we see on screen from the little boy is “as truthful as it gets.” The co-stars established a close friendship but Norton also recalls that he was so moved by working with Daniel that he was often reduced to tears – and that Pasolini often had to ask him not to cry in scenes.
That level of truth was equally important to the director, who describes the film as a “love story between a father and son”, one that was made possible through working with “two people who could communicate truth rather than performances.” Such was the impact of what they created on the screen that he’s since been asked if the two actors were related in real life.
Nowhere Special is released in cinemas on 16th July. | Read our review of the film here.
