WHO KILLED NANCY?

(UK, 2009, d. Alan G.Parker)

The Nancy of the title is Nancy Spungen, the murdered girlfriend of Punk musician, Sid Vicious, already the subject of the 1987 drama by Alex Cox, Sid and Nancy, where the leads were played by Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb.

Nancy was killed in 1978 and, despite this well-made documentary, one might wonder who cares. She was a self-made celebrity, a pushy woman from Philadelphia,who returned from England with some notoriety as Sid Vicious' companion in life and in drugs. The talking heads of this film are as one in not liking Nancy or having anything good to say about her.

They are much kinder to Sid Vicious (actual name, John Ritchie) though regretting his early death from an enormous indulgence in drugs, a number suggesting that, though he confessed to killing Nancy, the uninvestigated details of the case might indicate that she was robbed and killed by an unknown assailant while Sid was quite out of it.

There are some clips of Vicious in interview and in performance and some glimpses of Nancy.

If that sounds interesting, then the film will be for you with its wide range of commentators, memories of punk rock in the 1970s and its contribution to contemporary music, including comments from the director, Alan G. Parker, Sid Vicious' biographer. If it doesn't sound interesting, it will seem just another glorification of the cult of celebrity.