Movie Review: ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’

Opening in theaters October 24 is ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,’ written for the screen and directed by Scott Cooper and starring Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Gaby Hoffman, Marc Maron, and David Krumholtz.

​Opening in theaters October 24 is ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,’ written for the screen and directed by Scott Cooper and starring Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Gaby Hoffman, Marc Maron, and David Krumholtz.   

Opening in theaters October 24 is ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,’ written for the screen and directed by Scott Cooper and starring Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Gaby Hoffman, Marc Maron, and David Krumholtz.

Related Article: Jeremy Allen White to Voice Rotta the Hutt in ‘Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu’

Initial Thoughts

There are so many biopics – musical and otherwise –flying around these days that it’s hard for any single one to stand out from the pack. Scott Cooper’s ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ – about the making of the Boss’ immersive, bleak 1982 lo-fi masterpiece ‘Nebraska’ – manages to make its mark for about half its two-hour running time.

The part that chronicles Bruce Springsteen’s creative process, as well as the struggle for his manager, his engineers, his label, and finally a depressed Bruce himself to understand what he’s doing, is fascinating and even powerful. The other half of the film – about a pointless romance with a single mom and the now-overdone cliches about the protagonist coming to terms with an abusive, non-loving father – are painful to slog through, especially since they try and fail to tie themselves to the more successful narrative about the album.

Story and Direction

The movie opens in black and white, at Bruce’s childhood home in Freehold, New Jersey in 1957, where we learn in quick succession that his mom and dad fight (which, it’s implied, gets physical), that his dad is a drunk, and that these flashbacks are reappear like commercial breaks. It’s a smash cut from there to the stage of Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum in 1981, where the now-adult Bruce (Jeremy Allen White) finishes off his latest massive tour. Afterward, manager Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) tells Bruce – and us, in the first of many heavy-handed lumps of expository dialogue that Scott Cooper dumps in Strong’s lap – that they should start thinking about what’s next.

And Bruce does just that, moving into a secluded house deep in the woods of Colt’s Neck, New Jersey to begin working on new songs. His influences go far and wide – everything from movies like ‘Badlands’ and ‘The Night of the Hunter’ to the stories of Flannery O’Connor to his real-life glimpses of exhausted, dead-eyed working people sitting in diners (Cooper does capture the worn-down milieu of South Jersey in the ‘80s quite well) – and soon coalesce into a collection of haunting, sparse folk songs about the dark underside of American life that eventually becomes ‘Nebraska.’

That story, as well as the tricky gauntlet that Bruce runs to ultimately convince his manager and his inner circle that he wants to release the songs – recorded on a four-track machine in his bedroom – as is, without the involvement of the E Street Band and without releasing any singles, is the most interesting and lively part of a generally somber movie. But a lot of time is spent on the unresolved, cliched father-son conflict that Cooper tries to staple to the content of ‘Nebraska’ (which stands up quite well without it) and which we’ve seen so many times before that it’s now entered eye-rolling territory (which is not to make light of abusive fathers with substance abuse problems; it’s just that the movie doesn’t do anything new with it).

Also wasting our time is the romance with a local Asbury Park waitress (Odessa Young), who tells us – in another example of bad, trite writing – that she knows what she’s getting into with a sulky rock star who tends to disappear for weeks on end and then undermines that by behaving like it’s not what she expected. It’s a thankless character and storyline made even more insulting by the fact that it was made up for the movie, because somebody felt that Springsteen needed a love story.

The creative and business aspects of the film – Bruce writing the songs (a groanworthy moment or two aside, like when he writes ‘Mansion on the Hill’ after flashing back to his dad taking him to see…guess what), Landau reacting to the songs, Landau politely telling the head of the record label to get stuffed if he has a problem with what Bruce is serving up, and the struggle to master the record so that it sounds exactly as the Boss wants it – are quietly terrific. The rest, including a 10-minute tacked-on coda after the real ending that delves into therapy and borders on ridiculous, is not really worthy of this artist or the masterful album around which the film is constructed.

Cast and Performances

He doesn’t really look like the Boss, but Jeremy Allen White does capture something of his essence – and when the light or camera captures him a certain way, he almost resembles the man himself. But if he’s a little too broody on occasion, White’s rasp/whisper and body language still tell a lot about the inner turmoil and depression that both hinder and drive the artist. It’s an understated, nuanced performance that avoids the showiness of so many biopic marquee roles.

Equally effective is Jeremy Strong as Jon Landau. Although he’s cursed with some of the movie’s clunkiest dialogue, Strong channels the restrained resolve of one of rock’s most famous managers – gently pushing his client toward what needs to be done to continue their success, but knowing when to pull back and never showing anything but devotion to his client’s needs to the outside world. His warmth and love for Springsteen shine through as well, making their relationship one of the movie’s pillars. It’s also a nice change of pace for Strong after playing the vile Roy Cohn in ‘The Apprentice.’

The rest of the cast don’t have much to work with but do as well as they can. Odessa Young is very good but her character amounts to little as the woman who must be sacrificed at the altar of art, while Stephen Graham grunts and trudges his way through an essentially one-note character. The best of the supporting cast is Paul Walter Hauser as Bruce’s engineer, Mike Batlan, bringing some much-needed levity to a somber piece.

Final Thoughts

It’s interesting to compare ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ to last year’s brilliant Bob Dylan biopic ‘A Complete Unknown.’ The latter captures Dylan as the symbolic leader of a sea change in culture and music, while remaining an enigma. The former tries to paint Springsteen as a mystery too, but with the focus on him and not the way he changes the world around him, its impact is not nearly as powerful – especially when Scott Cooper brings more shopworn plot devices into the narrative.

Cringy dialogue like Bruce saying ‘That makes one of us,’ when a car salesman whispers conspiratorially, ‘I know who you are’ only steers this portrait of the Boss dangerously close to self-serving, performative mopiness, although White thankfully pulls it back with the sincerity of his work. If only more of ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ were as sincere.

‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ receives a score of 60 out of 100.

What is the plot of ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’?

Bruce Springsteen, a young musician on the cusp of global superstardom, struggles to reconcile the pressures of success with the ghosts of his past as he makes a raw, haunted acoustic album titled ‘Nebraska.’

Who is in the cast of ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’?

Jeremy Allen White as Bruce SpringsteenJeremy Strong as Jon LandauPaul Walter Hauser as Mike BatlanStephen Graham as Douglas SpringsteenOdessa Young as Faye RomanoGaby Hoffmann as Adele SpringsteenMarc Maron as Chuck PlotkinDavid Krumholtz as Al TellerJohnny Cannizzaro as Steven Van ZandtMatthew Pellicano Jr. as young Bruce Springsteen

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