• Friday, November 07, 1986

• Country:

  USA

• Language:

  English

• Runtime:

  112 min

1986

Sid and Nancy is the biographical motion picture about the punk rock couple Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. The film tells the story of the Sex Pistols bassist Sid and his drug-filled relationship with Nancy. After the break up of the band, he begins a solo career while still a heroin addict. When Nancy is found stabed to death, Sid is arrested for her murder.

Sid and Nancy stars Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb in the lead roles. Sid and Nancy received positive reviews, including a high review from The Chicago Sun Times critic Roger Ebert, who gave it four stars and called the couple "Punk Rocks Romeo and Juliet."

Punk rock's first great embodiment of the motto "live fast and die young," Sid Vicious joined The Sex Pistols when they were already established as the most controversial rock band in British history; and it soon became apparent that he couldn't play his instrument, had a magnetic attraction to chaos, and possessed a dangerous thirst for booze, drugs, and violence. Sid and Nancy opens shortly after Sid (Gary Oldman) joined the band, when he meets an obnoxious American punk groupie named Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb).

Nancy claims that she can get drugs, and Sid naively gives her his money. Nancy doesn't show up with the goods, but when Sid runs into her a few days later, she has a tall tale about getting ripped off - and Sid sympathizes with her. Before long, Sid and Nancy have fallen in love, and while they argue with uncommon vehemence, they also depend completely on each other.

When The Sex Pistols break up, Sid has few prospects and an increasingly voracious appetite for heroin, and Nancy's attempts to "manage" his career only hasten his downhill slide. Former Clash leader Joe Strummer wrote Sid and Nancy theme song, "Love Kills," and The Pogues, The Circle Jerks, and Pray for Rain contributed to the soundtrack.

Goofs

• Anachronisms: Set in the late 1970's, shows a 1985 Honda Civic in the background in the opening scenes with Sid and John.
• Factual errors: In one of the early pub scenes, the opening band for the Pistols is supposedly X-ray Spex, belting out one of their best-known hits: "Oh, Bondage, Up Yours!" However, the lead singer Poly Styrene is depicted as rail thin, with long straight hair and no braces on her teeth; most surprisingly, she is portrayed as being white. In real life, Sid and Nancy Poly (Marion Eliott) is of Anglo-Somali parentage; and in 1977 she was not model thin, plus she had short curly hair and braces. Also during this scene the lyrics "Oh Bondage Up Yours" are being incorrectly sung as "Oh Mondays No More"
• Anachronisms: When Sid and Nancy is at a bar in New York, he sees a television showing his ex-bandmate Johnny Rotten/Lydon being interviewed by Tom Snyder on "The Tomorrow Show" (1973). This interview between Lydon and Snyder did not air until June 25, 1980 - nearly 18 months after Sid had died from a heroin overdose.
• Factual errors: Nancy puts the famous chain and padlock necklace around Sid and Nancy neck, as if it was a present from her. In fact, it was not given to him by Nancy, but by Chrissie Hynde, from the band The Pretenders.
• Continuity: In 1975, when Sid and Nancy are smashing up the Rolls Royce, the can of spray paint alternates between being in Sid's hand and sitting on the hood, next to him, between shots. Also, the windshield gains and looses minor amounts of damage at random.
• Continuity: Nancy's neck is bare when she is hanging out of the window at the fancy hotel, but is wearing a dog collar in the subsequent scene on the roof.
• Continuity: In one scene where Sid and Nancy are lying in bed together, one shot shows Sid lying with his arm dangling over the side of the bed. His wrist is bare. In the next shot, his hand is right up next to his face and a studded cuff has appeared.
• Anachronisms: In 1975, when the Sex Pistols supposedly attacked Rod Stewart's Limousine, the Limo was a Cadillac made between 1980 and 1985.
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When the police arrest Sid at the beginning of the film,he bites one of the police officers. When the officer replies, his lips do not match the words.
• Continuity: When we see the annoying singer that was on the Sex Pistols' tour bus getting a drink at the bar, Sid and Nancy Steve Jones is on the left-hand side in the background. In the next shot, Sid is on the left side and Jones is on the right.

Taglines

• Love kills

Trivias

• 'Tim Roth' turned down the role of Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) as he felt the film depicted history that was too recent.
• In Alex Cox's previous film Repo Man (1984), a punk at a party in the beginning can be seen wearing a shirt with Sid Vicious on it.
• The real Johnny Rotten ('John Lydon') dismissed this film as "mere fantasy... the Peter Pan version."
• Gary Oldman wore Sid's real chain necklace in the movie. When doing his research, Sid's mom gave him the necklace to wear during filming.
• One of the film's trailers was refused certification by the British Board of Film Classification
• Chloe Webb and Gary Oldman improvised their dialogue in the scene leading up to Spungen's death. They created their dialogue from archival interviews and other materials available to them.
• Gary Oldman had to lose weight to play Sid Vicious, but he lost so much that he ended up in hospital.
• Director Alex Cox's second choice for the role of Sid Vicious was Daniel Day-Lewis.
• Courtney Love auditioned for the role of Nancy Spungen, but was cast as Nancy's friend Gretchen instead. Alex Cox was impressed by Love's audition and considered casting her as Nancy. But the film's investors insisted on an experienced actor for the role. By way of an apology, 'Alex Cox (I)' then cast Courtney Love as one of the main characters in his next movie Straight to Hell (1987).
• Sid's mother Anne Beverly initially tried to prevent the movie from being made but after meeting with Alex Cox she decided to help the production.