Sid & Nancy is a 1986 British biographical drama directed by Alex Cox that follows the life of Sid Vicious (Gary Oldman) and his relationship with Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb).
Sid Vicious is a drug user and young reprobate who gets hired to play bass in a punk band, the Sex Pistols. The Sex Pistols rapidly become the most popular band in the British punk scene, and Sid becomes a big star, despite the fact that he actually isn't a very good bass player. At the same time, Sid falls in love with an American band groupie and heroin addict, Nancy Spungen. Sid and Nancy descend into drugs and despair, ending in tragedy.
The movie also stars David Hayman, Debby Bishop, Andrew Schofield, Xander Berkeley (as Bowery, Sid and Nancy's New York drug dealer), Courtney Love (Gretchen, Nancy's friend), and Perry Benson.
Tropes for the film:
- Addled Addict: A very dark portrait of this, as Sid and Nancy are unable to function due to their debilitating heroin addictions. See this conversation in the Hotel Chelsea in New York:Sid: This is just a rough patch. Things will get better when we get to America, I promise.
Nancy: We're in America!
Sid: What?
Nancy: We've been here a week. New York is in America, you fuck! - And Introducing A Credits Gag says "And introducing the Young Cat Vicious in the role of Smoky, Sid and Nancy's child" (they had a pet cat).
- Artistic License – History:
- Nancy puts the famous chain and padlock necklace around Sid's neck, as if it was a present from her. In fact, it was by Chrissie Hynde.
- Nancy is shown getting Sid started on heroin. In fact Sid's own mother, a junkie who eventually OD'd in 1996, was just as influential in getting Sid hooked.
- John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon, who was a Londoner, is given a Liverpool accent.
- In general the movie is a pretty loose adaptation of Sid Vicious's life. John Lydon hated the film and attacked it in the press for this; when Lydon was asked what the movie got right he said "Maybe the name Sid."
- Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: Malcolm the manager and the rest of the Sex Pistols are debating what to do about Sid, who is both a drug-addled mess and a pretty bad bass player. Malcolm, defending Sid for his star power if nothing else, says "The problem is not Sidney. The problem, as you're all aware, is—", and he's interrupted by Phoebe, who has just fielded a phone call, saying "It's Spungen." (Nancy is on the line making demands.)
- The Big Rotten Apple: Sid and Nancy wind up in the Hotel Chelsea in what is a very grungy, dirty version of New York. There are Trashcan Bonfires, drug addicts all over the place, dilapidated buildings. One scene (in a shot that was used for posters) shows Sid and Nancy kissing in an alley, leaning up against a dumpster, as garbage literally rains down around them. The last scene has Sid going out for a pizza and finding some tiny pizzeria that is incongruously in the middle of a garbage dump.
- Belated Injury Realization: Nancy is so whacked out on drugs that she does not even notice when she gets stabbed in the gut. Instead she crawls into bed with Sid, only to get up later saying "I don't feel so good," revealing blood everywhere under the sheets. She takes The Dying Walk into the bathroom and apparently just barely has time to notice her wound in the mirror before she collapses on the bathroom floor and dies.
- Brutal Honesty: Nancy has called home from London, asking her parents for money. They refuse, and Nancy freaks out and wrecks the phone booth.Nancy: I fucking hate them! I fucking hate them! Fucking motherfuckers! They wouldn't send us any money! They said we'd spend it on DRUGS!
Sid: We would! - Cut Himself Shaving: When Malcolm asks what the bruises on his arm are (Sid has started shooting heroin with Nancy), Sid lamely says "I fell over."
- Drugs Are Bad: They are very, very, very bad. They may destroy your budding career as a punk-rocker. They may cause you to pass out onstage or vomit in public while you're out at dinner. They may cause you to accidentally stab your girlfriend in the stomach, or to not even notice that you've been stabbed even as you bleed out.
- Edgy Backwards Chair-Sitting: The detective interrogating Sid after his arrest does this, obviously as an intimidation tactic.
- Fish out of Water: Sid, the heroin-addled punk rocker, sitting shirtless at the dinner table as Nancy's respectable middle-class Jewish-American family looks on in horror. After dinner, Nancy's grandparents chuck her and Sid out of the house.
- Gilligan Cut: Phoebe pushes Sid to quit drinking and doing heroin. Sid says "All right, I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die." Cut to Sid, on the plane back to England, taking a double brandy from a stewardess and then popping some pills.
- Historical Domain Character:
- Sid Vicious, bassist for the Sex Pistols.
- Nancy Spungen, Sid's girlfriend.
- How We Got Here: The movie opens with Nancy's body being taken out of the hotel where they were living, followed by Sid in handcuffs being led away by police. At police HQ, the detective asks Sid what happened, and the film jumps back a few years to the beginning of their relationship.
- Misplaced Accent: Alex Cox claimed that John Lydon told Andrew Schofield to play him as a Scouser. Cox took this as a sign that it would be better to portray a more fictionalized version take rather than a cold re-telling of facts.
- Name and Name: Sid & Nancy
- No Swastikas: The numerous swastikas worn on Sid Vicious' and other early punks' apparel is replaced by a hammer-and-sickle design.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: A dream version. Sid is dancing with some kids when a taxi pulls up and Nancy is in the back. They drive off together—but of course in the movie's continuity Nancy is already dead.
- Pop-Star Composer: The film features no music from Sid Vicious or The Sex Pistols. Instead, the score was provided by Joe Strummer, Pray For Rain and The Pogues.
- Present-Day Past: This film, made in the mid-eighties but set in the late-seventies (of course), has some rather obvious 'eighties cars, including an '80-82 Cadillac limo in 1975, and an '84-'85 Honda Civic. Strangely the latter does have correctly lettered number plates for the year ('old' P-reg in British car parlance).
- Separated by a Common Language: Nancy the American is unfamiliar with British working-class slang.Wally: Do you wanna use my gaff?
Nancy: What's a gaff?
Wally: Me house. My apartment.- And again:
Nancy: You're just wonking off!
John: Wanking. - Spiky Hair: Oldman's portrayal of Sid Vicious just had to follow that hairdo
◊. - Tagline: "Love Kills".
- Trashcan Bonfire: A couple of trashcan bonfires are seen towards the end, to emphasize that Sid and Nancy are living in a really grungy, run-down part of New York.
- Two Words: I Can't Count: Lampshaded, as the band is having a meeting to get ready for their tour.Malcolm: Four words: No women on the tour.
Sid: That's five words. - Yoko Oh No: In-Universe, the rest of the band and especially John dislike Nancy, whom they believe is encouraging Sid's habits of drugs and debauchery when they'd rather he practiced at being a better bass player.
