The new biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere focuses on the rock icon’s troubled inner life.
“Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” starring Jeremy Allen White
Jeremy Allen White of ‘The Bear’ explores the making of Bruce Springsteen’s album ‘Nebraska’ in the biopic ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere’.
- Jeremy Allen White stars as The Boss in the new biopic “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.”
- The film (released Oct. 24) focuses on Bruce Springsteen’s mental health during the making of his 1982 album “Nebraska.”
- The film’s few live performances are moving.
There’s a touching moment in “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” during the recording of “Born in the USA” when the E Street Band cooks and the boss cries, and you know something special is going on. It’s also a different scene from most Bruce Springsteen biopics.
Whether that’s a good thing may depend on your level of Springsteen fandom. Scott Cooper’s musical drama (★★★ out of 4, rated PG-13, in theaters Oct. 24) centers on the making of the American icon’s 1982 album Nebraska, a melancholy if introspective work compared to his popular songs like “Glory Days” and “Born to Run.” Jeremy Allen White gamely directs Springsteen in front of a live audience, but there are few such moments in “Nowhere,” and the film is far more interested in understanding Springsteen’s troubled inner life than he is in the swagger of a working-class rock singer.
In 1981, fresh off an exhausting but successful tour and on the brink of superstardom, Bruce rented a house near his hometown in New Jersey to get away from it all. But it is impossible to run away from yourself. “Hungry Heart” is playing on the radio (which the protagonist quickly turns off), and the salesman who went to buy a new car says he knows who Springsteen is. “That’s who we are,” Bruce quips.
His loyal manager and friend Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) drowns out the “noise” of record company executives anxious to release another album of hit singles while they still have momentum. But Bruce has other plans. He’s haunted by unresolved childhood trauma from being around an alcoholic and abusive father (Stephen Graham), and Bruce channels those feelings, plus inspiration from Flannery O’Connor stories and violent true-crime stories, into a series of acoustic songs that he pours into his bedroom’s four-track cassette recorder.
The fight to release “Nebraska” on his own terms and how Bruce turns his struggle with depression into a seminal work of art is both entertaining and thought-provoking. In that sense, Deliver Me From Nowhere is better than most bland biopics that focus on a singular period in a musician’s life. (Looking at you, “Bohemian Rhapsody.”) But it also fails to take lessons from better works like the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown.”
One extra subplot involves Bruce’s romance with single mother Faye (Odessa Young). The relationship initially goes well, but deteriorates with Singer ghosting her as she becomes more and more focused on her creative endeavors. Young is perfect for the role, but Faye is a composite of the women he dated at the time. The fact that the boss is an ambiguous boyfriend doesn’t really add much to the film’s thematic depth, and she seems to exist solely to vent Bruce’s dissatisfaction with the upholstery of his fancy new Camaro. Meanwhile, Bruce’s mother (Gaby Hoffman), whom her child fiercely protects, is left annoyingly unexplored.
Cooper casts Jeremy’s acclaimed and Emmy Award-winning couple to further the film’s core relationship. White, who usually excels in the chaos of “The Bear,” here finds a quiet anger in the serenity of blues solitude, and also shows his musical side in the acoustic moments. And Strong plays the suave Landau admirably, whether in the midst of an intense recording session or in the touching intimacy of John and Bruce’s bromance. There are few things the Academy loves more than actors who play musicians, which makes White a strong candidate for the Best Actor Oscar. Don’t be surprised if Strong is seriously considered for a supporting role.
The live performances are evocative, even if fleeting, and Springsteen’s insistence on stripping away the myth and seeing the soul beneath makes up for the film’s storytelling missteps. “Deliver Me From Nowhere” is a solid portrait of an artist working on something and a man learning the power of being a boss.
