Directed by Scott Cooper | Written by Cooper, based on the book by Warren Zanes | ▲▲▲1/2 | In Cinemas
Bruce Springsteen’s signature song is probably still “Born To Run,” which cemented his status as a heartland rocker.
But in a BBC Documentary called Glory Days, released in 1987, he admits that the albums following Born To Run were a response to it. Songs on Darkness On The Edge of Town and The River asked the question: What happens when you leave your community behind? You get out of town, what happens then? What if you can’t get a job, or pay the bills? What if you can’t support your family?
None of Springsteen’s albums looked more directly into that darkness and doubt than Nebraska, released in September 1982. Springsteen wrote it during a period of isolation after a big radio hit and big tour. He recorded the demos for the album on a non-professional four-track in the bedroom of a rented house, folk songs and noirish tales of lost Americana, with the songwriter pulling on the guise of lost, desperate, and lonely characters. His E Street Band tried to replicate the mood of the demos in a studio environment, but the band couldn’t match the haunted quality of the original demos to Springsteen’s satisfaction. He eventually decided to release those home recordings as the record, to the chagrin of his label, but Nebraska ended up as beloved by fans as any of his releases. Nebraska has already inspired a film — Sean Penn’s directorial debut The Indian Runner came from the song, “Highway Patrolman.”
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere explores where he was, emotionally and actually, during the months he was working on Nebraska. It’s an odd segment of his life and career to bring to light in cinema, but a profound one. It makes literal the myth around the story, which might not work for everyone. I predict it will please his fanbase more so than the average moviegoer who, used to narratives of rock stars’ flamboyant brilliance and overconsumption of drugs, might balk at this low-key story of how this clean-living, shy guy figures out he’s depressed while writing and recording a bunch of downbeat songs. But I’ve been wrong before.
Fans of The Bear (unwatched by me) will know well the lead, Jeremy Allen White, whereas I recognize him only from The Iron Claw. He does a terrific job as Bruce Springsteen, avoiding the obvious traps of impersonation but for a recognizable authenticity in his singing and on-stage performance scenes. Here he’s just a shaggy dude in a leather jacket.
The key relationship in the film is between Bruce and his manager, Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong), who supports him even as he’s struggling with this new, darker material. We rarely see male friendship shown like this, and it’s probably the most profoundly emotional aspect of the movie. A scene of the two of them sitting together listening to an obscure Sam Cooke song is its single best moment.
We also flash back to when Bruce was a kid, living in Freehold, New Jersey with his mother, Adele (Gaby Hoffman) and father, Douglas (Stephen Graham), prone to drinking and violence. The black-and-white scenes bring a haunted quality to the proceedings, with young Bruce (Matthew Anthony Pellicano Jr) going to the movies with his Dad to see Night Of The Hunter. That scarred me as an undergrad, I can’t imagine the effect it would’ve had on a child. Deliver Me also makes room for romance. Bruce gets to know a single mother, Faye Romano (Odessa Young) who works at a local diner, but even as they connect it’s clear he can’t genuinely open up to her.
While much of this is fascinating, even as a fan of the music and his myth, I recognize some of it is clumsy. Talented actors like Marc Maron, Grace Gummer, and David Krumholtz barely manifest in underwritten roles. We never get a sense of the camaraderie of the E Street Band — it’s hard to believe the creative direction Bruce was taking with these songs wouldn’t have surprised his closest colleagues Steve Van Zandt or Clarence Clemons. What did they say to him about it? The movie doesn’t let on as no one from the band gets a line.
The final act is also startlingly lean and rushed — part of it includes a big geographic move, but the picture doesn’t seed the reason for this. It doesn’t make any sense given what the narrative has established, that Bruce likes living in the area where he grew up. Nor does it provide any closure with Faye, which would’ve been fair to her and to the audience. Finally, the daddy issues are layered on pretty thick, slathered with a sentiment we maybe could’ve lived without.
All that said, this is the rare, unconventional musical biopic that’s interested in the minutia of the process of making music, the emotional landscape of the artist struggling with his identity, and the role mental health plays in all of it. For those reasons it’s entirely worth watching, though maybe especially if you’re a serious fan of The Boss.
