Sid & Nancy (1986)

Sid & Nancy (1986)

Written by Alex Cox and Abbe Wool

Directed by Alex Cox

Please excuse this review for being 23 years late, as I was roughly one year old when it came out.  Inexplicably, I had never seen this until last night.  Yea, I know.  I had many opportunities, hell, I lived with White Goodman for about 5 months.  That man practically IS Sid Vicious (and he even named one of his cats after the man).  I even watched Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt’s recent ode to the iconic final moments of the flick (but that was done more to satiate my incurable, and admittedly kinda creepy, love for Zooey Deschanel).  So, no, I have no excuse for having not seen this earlier in my life.  The only semblance of an excuse is that I never felt like I was emotionally ready to understand it.  And right, I was.

This movie is a tornado that will rip apart your insides.  You’ll try not to fall in love with Sid.  There are plenty of reasons to hate him.  He’s an incorrigible dick.  He’s a drug addict, and a lunatic.  Still, he’s fucking awesome.  Sid Vicious was the Rock Star to end all Rock Stars.  I always knew Gary Oldman was the shit.  My mom took me to see Air Force One when it came out in 1997 (I was, and still am, a Star Wars geek, so naturally, Harrison Ford was my hero) and it was Gary Oldman’s performance that simply blew me away.  Subsequently, he’s known to me most prominently as Drexl from True Romance, not to mention the countless other films he’s been in.  But here…Here, Gary Oldman is electric.  He IS Sid Vicious.  There wasn’t a single second that I saw him as anything other than Sid. 

And then there’s Chloe Webb as Nancy Spungen.  Let me just say, I know absolutely nothing Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten, or the Sex Pistols. I was born about 8 years too late to really understand and be a part of that scene.  But what I can understand is that Nancy Spungen is the Yoko Ono of the punk scene.  Or at least, that’s how the film portrays her.  She’s annoying, needy, and she is the reason Sid gets addicted to heroin.  Webb is not an attractive woman.  But then again, I suppose Gary Oldman wasn’t that attractive at the time either.  But this isn’t a film about the benefits of being a rock star.  Sid doesn’t fall for Nancy because she’s this hot piece of model ass.  She has what he needs.  Heroin and a vagina.  But you know what?  You can’t help but like her.  Webb plays Spungen with just that little bit of charm that makes you see her the way Sid sees her, and it’s a benefit to the rest of the film.

Aside from Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb, what I liked most about the flick was the cinematography.  There are several shots in the film that seem to be about nothing and they go on forever.  You question the first one, but after that, they help to build up the tension.  The most memorable example is the slow motion shot of Sid and Nancy kissing in an alleyway, while trash rains down from above.  Another one of my favorites was Sid’s version of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”.  I’m telling you, you will not be able to take your eyes off of Sid Vicious for the entire flick.

Sid & Nancy gets my seal of approval.  If you haven’t seen it, then what the hell is wrong with you?