Sid and Nancy

A film about the relationship between the Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. They meet in London. The band is at its height but Sid's relation to music is thin; he barely knows how to play bass and his stage presence is an attitude. Nancy has come from America and her addiction is well advanced. The relationship quickly becomes two people destroying each other. The band breaks up and they move to New York, to the Chelsea Hotel. Nancy was found dead in a hotel room in 1978; Sid was arrested and died of an overdose the following year, before the case concluded. The film's choice is not to glorify the punk period. The narrative is interested not in the energy of the stage but in two people's daily collapse: finding money, looking for drugs, fighting, and rooms that keep getting smaller. Gary Oldman plays Sid and Chloe Webb plays Nancy; their performances are what the film is most discussed for. Alex Cox directed. The band's former singer John Lydon criticised the film harshly and said what it shows has nothing to do with the truth. An important example for anyone who likes the history of punk and dark biography. Before you watch, know this: the film shows addiction directly and at length, romanticises it nowhere, and its ending goes where everyone already knows.