Review of Sid and Nancy (1986) by Al M — 04 Aug 2010

My opinion of Sid and Nancy is a somewhat ambivalent one. One the one hand, Alex Cox's direction is superbly quirky and lyrical, and he continues to build upon the style that he began to develop in Repo Man. Also, Gary Oldman gives a powerhouse performance as Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious. On the other hand, I find this film tedious, grating, and annoying. Of course, I never met Nancy Spungee, Sid's titular girlfriend in the film, but either she was the most annoying, vapid, and abrasive person ever or Chloe Webb's performance is just crap. Her character is one of the most annoying, whiney, and loud characters I have ever seen in a film; she makes me shudder and wonder how anyone could possibly her. Her portrayal is so grating that I found it impossible to ever become invested in the so-called love story of the film. Similarly, the portrayal of Jonny Rotten is shallow and stupid--it completely robs the character of any artistic credibility. In fact, the whole film makes the punk scene seem silly, pointless, and utterly debauched.

Still, as in Repo Man, Cox brings a punk aesthetic to cinema that is seen in almost no other filmmaker. The images of London and New York seem like post-apocalyptic wastelands, perfect spawning grounds for the anarchist punks that arise from them. But sadly Sid and Nancy robs punk of its political content and instead tries to romanticize a relationship that it simultaneously paints as being driven by nothing more than heroin. In general, while I am not a fan of heroin itself, I am often a fan of music, literature, and film that is built upon the artist's experience with the drug: the works of William S. Burroughs, the late 60s-early 70s Rolling Stones albums, Trainspotting (both Irvine Welsh's novel and Danny Boyle's film), the Velvet Underground's albums, etc. But Sid and Nancy never coalesces into anything more than a petty moralistic tale about the evils of drug abuse and how the social wasteland of the postmodern West inevitably drives youth towards such choices. The man at the methdone clinic in the film expresses this himself when he tells Sid that he could be spreading healthy anarchy instead of being nothing more than a strung out junkie. In fact, Sid and Nancy confirms my--perhaps unjust--opinion that the Sex Pistols are an overrated band. True, Never Mind the Bollocks... is an awesome album, but that was the only album they released. How then can they really compare to bands like Iggy and the Stooges, The Clash, Bad Brains, The Ramones, Black Flag, etc. If nothing else, Sid and Nancy points out how the Sex Pistols became more of a punk symbol of anarchic living, disillusionment, and hedonistic disentegration than an actual band of some importance. Thus, Sid and Nancy is a problematic film, but it does an excellent job of capturing the social melieu that surrounded a particular artistic movement and should be viewed by fans of music history or punk.