England Is Mine, the biopic about the early life of singer Morrissey, the outspoken former lead singer of seminal British band The Smiths, will be released in the US via Cleopatra Entertainment.  The film will open August 25 at the IFC Center in New York, then expand nationwide throughout the fall. This was first exclusively reportedly by Deadline.

England Is Mine is directed by Academy Award® and BAFTA Award nominee Mark Gill (The Voorman Problem), and stars Jack Lowden (Dunkirk) and Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey).

Set in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain of the 1970s and ’80s, a time when working-class Manchester was beset by unemployment and riots, the film tells the story of 17-year-old Steven (Lowden), a painfully shy, intellectually precocious loner who lives for, and writes about, the burgeoning local music scene — a surprisingly vibrant subculture in an otherwise drab industrial city. Too intimidated to join that scene, he writes reviews from the sidelines, imagining what he would do if he were onstage. When one of his write-ups is noticed by kindred spirit Sterling, an aspiring painter, the two become fast friends, and she pushes him to form a band and take to the stage. Steven finally works up the courage to book a club date and performs a dazzling cover of an old girl-group standard. This is the first time the world gets to hear the distinctive, emotion-filled voice that eventually would propel him to stardom.

That very night, a manager reaches out with an offer. Unfortunately, it’s only for the musicians, not the lead singer, meaning Steven will be left behind. His dreams of a musical career vanishes, and he’s left with nothing but wasted days at a soul-crushing civil servant job and lonely nights holed up in the same bedroom he’s slept in his whole life. Only his mother’s unwavering belief in his talent, and Linder’s constant reminder — “Be yourself, everyone else is taken” — give him the strength to keep trying to become the artist he was always meant to be.