{"id":186332,"date":"2025-08-30T03:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T03:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/186332\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T03:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T03:59:09","slug":"springsteen-deliver-me-from-nowhere-review-a-downbeat-music-biopic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/186332\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ Review: A Downbeat Music Biopic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn an industry where even \u201cWeird Al\u201d Yankovic has a movie about his life story, it\u2019s about time the Boss got his due. But \u201cSpringsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere<\/a>\u201d isn\u2019t just another assembly-line biopic \u2014 and that\u2019s a blessing \u2014 in that it focuses not on the blue-collar troubadour\u2019s glory days, but on the darkest chapter of his career: the narrow, near-suicidal period in which he stepped back from the success of his tour for \u201cThe River,\u201d returned to his working-class roots and wrote what many consider to be his greatest album, \u201cNebraska.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tToo many music-centric movies subscribe to the same formula, dramatizing the arc whereby talented nobodies get discovered, shoot to stardom and then stumble with drugs and infidelity when fame becomes too much, only to be redeemed (\u201cRocketman\u201d) or buried (\u201cFade to Black\u201d) in the end. It\u2019s an exasperating genre in that it forces some of the planet\u2019s most unorthodox personalities into a reductive, overly moralistic mold, the obvious solution for which is to find and focus on a dramatic segment of their larger life story.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the man who made \u201cCrazy Heart,\u201d about the last hurrah of a grizzled folk legend, writer-director Scott Cooper intuitively recognizes a compelling hook when he hears it. The spiritual crisis Springsteen faced around the writing of \u201cNebraska\u201d seems as good an angle as any, though the filmmaker assumes we already know and care more about that record than is reasonable. It\u2019s hard to imagine the under-30 set recognizing the significance of a star of Springsteen\u2019s stature making an album in his bedroom \u2014 not his first, but his sixth, which made it all the more radical \u2014 effectively paving the way for the DIY indie-rock sound that followed.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut without that background, it\u2019s a fairly dull story.<\/p>\n

\n\tCompared with figures like Michael Jackson and Prince (heck, even Yankovic), Springsteen\u2019s ruggedly handsome, man-of-the-people persona should have made him a reasonably easy artist to cast, and yet, it\u2019s taken this long to find the right guy for the part. It requires a star to play a star, and an actor to access the Boss\u2019s more introspective side, and \u201cThe Bear\u201d sensation Jeremy Allen White<\/a> slips easily into the worn denim and sleeveless T-shirts that were Springsteen\u2019s signature. More importantly, he does all his own singing, capturing the scratchy, soul-searching baritone that marked that period of his career.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe first meet Springsteen onstage, soaked in sweat and giving one hell of a show \u2014 already the burgeoning rock god, determined to shake the \u201cnew Dylan\u201d refrain \u2014 but that\u2019s the last we\u2019ll see of Bruce\u2019s contagious charisma for nearly 100 minutes, as the star does something shocking for someone poised to rocket to the moon: Instead of immediately following that up with \u201cBorn in the U.S.A.\u201d (a monster success that couldn\u2019t have existed without first passing through the noncommercial terrain of \u201cNebraska\u201d), he goes home \u2026 looking for what exactly?<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s the central mystery of Cooper\u2019s film, which he drew from Warren Zanes\u2019 excellent deep dive into the making of \u201cNebraska.\u201d In his book, Zanes identifies the album as a turning point in music recording history, a stripped-down collection of intimate sketches, captured on a four-track TEAC 144 and released more or less as it was, imperfections and all \u2014 without backup from the E Street Band, relying on Mike Batlan (Paul Walter Hauser) to mix and a water-damaged Panasonic boombox for playback.<\/p>\n

\n\tPrior to 1981, the equipment didn\u2019t exist that would have allowed artists to record at home, and even then, it wasn\u2019t Springsteen\u2019s intention to release those tapes. That\u2019s what makes them so special: He didn\u2019t know he was making an album, which is what gave \u201cNebraska\u201d its purity (especially coming from such a notorious perfectionist as Springsteen). Well, that and Springsteen\u2019s insistence that it be released with no radio edits, no singles, no press and no tour. As Zanes put it, \u201cThe album made it impossible to use the word \u2018sellout.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie doesn\u2019t do nearly enough to contextualize this breakthrough, however. It shows all the headaches Bruce\u2019s tape caused for manager Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) and recording engineer Chuck Plotkin (Marc Maron) and his cadre of studio pros, but the technical side isn\u2019t nearly as dramatic as it sounds, and there\u2019s only limited interest in watching White navigate the icon\u2019s first serious bout of depression. That is, unless one understands just how much that record represents to the next generations of musicians and why.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the film depicts, right after \u201cThe River,\u201d Bruce rents a house in Colts Neck, New Jersey, where he watches Terrence Malick\u2019s \u201cBadlands\u201d (based on the Charles Starkweather crime spree), reads Flannery O\u2019Connor and listens to Suicide\u2019s hard-on-the-ears debut album \u2014 all inspirations for \u201cNebraska.\u201d But what he\u2019s really doing is coming to terms with the stardom that awaits; he revisits his old haunts, where former classmates now look up to him (the precise feeling that chip-on-their-shoulder fame-seekers so often crave) and a casual acquaintance\u2019s kid sister hits on the singer.<\/p>\n

\n\tFaye Romano plays this composite character, Odessa Young, an earnest single mom who never left home, but gets her wish of dating the guy who did. Her romance with Bruce goes nowhere but reveals layers of Springsteen \u2014 that he wasn\u2019t celibate, for starters, but also the slightly callous, self-involved way that writing \u201cNebraska\u201d took priority in his mind.<\/p>\n

\n\tReturning to his old turf was inevitably triggering for Springsteen, forcing him to confront unresolved family issues. \u201cAdolescence\u201d star Stephen Graham and Gaby Hoffmann play his parents, one drunk and distant, the other in need of defending, who haunt him via trite black-and-white flashbacks (presumably essential, considering how much Springsteen\u2019s childhood informs \u201cNebraska\u201d).<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s a stagnant feel to Bruce\u2019s time back in Jersey, during which we watch him jotting down lyrics and test-driving songs like \u201cMansion on the Hill\u201d and \u201cAtlantic City.\u201d Cooper captures the moment when Bruce crosses out the \u201cHe\u201d in \u201cNebraska\u201d and decides to relate Starkweather\u2019s story in the first person instead.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s rare to see a producer have his client\u2019s back the way Landau does (though the role isn\u2019t substantive enough to take full advantage of Strong\u2019s strengths). His support effectively removes what conflict such a creative risk represents \u2014 the pushback loosely embodied by David Krumholtz as Columbia exec Al Teller, who expects a follow-up he can sell.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs \u201cNebraska\u201d comes together, we realize this wasn\u2019t pop music Springsteen was making, but something deeply cynical about the country Ronald Reagan and the mainstream media believed he was cheerleading. Rather, he delivered a downbeat ballad about all the ways the American dream had fallen short. This is how such unvarnished truth found its way to the people. The rest \u2014 what it represented to every soul it touched \u2014 is for you to sort out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an industry where even \u201cWeird Al\u201d Yankovic has a movie about his life story, it\u2019s about time…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":186333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4580,82346,171,8758,53,104193,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-186332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-bruce-springsteen","9":"tag-deliver-me-from-nowhere","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-jeremy-allen-white","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-telluride-film-festival","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115115718393728082","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}