MOVIE REVIEW: The Boss Hits the Big Screen
"Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere" delivers an intimate biopic
By Alan Herrmann
The year 2025 in cinema was fair to middling. There seemed to be too many films that were blockbusters from the comic book universe, overindulgent action movies, and award-seeking films that weren’t going to appeal to me. In all fairness, several films are just coming out so hopefully I’ll find more interesting choices as time moves on.
The films I did enjoy so far were Guillermo del Torro’s Frankenstein, Weapons, Train Dreams, and Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere.
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is a music biopic without the usual tired tropes or over-the-top dreamlike images. This is a serious, personal movie about an artist at a crossroads.
In 1981, Bruce Springsteen had completed The River, an ambitious album that paid off for the 31-year-old singer songwriter from New Jersey. The record company was eager for another great album and a tour along the lines of Born to Run. But Springsteen wasn’t ready to continue down that road. He felt drained and wanted to step back, slow down a bit. He felt depressed and was at an emotional and artistic juncture in his life. He wanted to explore his feelings with a more intimate record.
It would be hard to convince his manager and friend, Jon Landau, and nearly impossible to sell the idea to the record company. He wanted a stripped-down album using a simple four-track tape recorder, rather than a complex sound system. In some ways it was the opposite of what Dylan did in 1965 when he caused an uproar by going electric. Springsteen contemplated not only an acoustic record but a single voice as well — himself, without the E Street Band.
Director and writer Scott Cooper was the perfect choice for this film. Having made Crazy Heart about an alcoholic country singer played by Jeff Bridges, Cooper’s pacing and straightforward storytelling made him the right fit to tell this chapter of Springsteen’s story. We learn a lot about Springsteen even though the film focuses on a brief period of his life. It is more in line with music biopics like Maestro (Leonard Bernstein), Love & Mercy (Brian Wilson), and A Complete Unknown (Bob Dylan).
There are a few flashbacks exploring the relationship between Springsteen and his father, and some fleeting scenes with his supportive mother, but most of the film takes place during the time period when the idea for Nebraska was conceived and its release. The film also shows us the dark side of Springsteen in flashbacks where he and his father go to see The Night of the Hunter, a chilling tale about children trying to escape a false preacher out to get them. It has a lasting impact on the young musician, as does the true story of killer Charles Starkweather and his young girlfriend who terrorized the states of Kansas and Nebraska in the fifties. These disturbing and bleak images find their way into Springsteen’s Nebraska and, in the end, the truly solo album wins over critics and fans alike.
Actor Jeremy Allen White doesn’t really look like Springsteen. He has lighter hair, blue eyes, and heavy eyelids. In fact, he looks more like a young Robert Mitchum. But White has the swagger, the talk, and he can sing. He has tremendous charisma and vulnerability, and a streetwise sensibility like Springsteen himself. You see it when he’s performing in the opening concert scene and when he plays at his favorite Asbury Park venue, The Stone Pony, where he sits in with the house band. You also see how good White is in the quieter moments, with his expressive eyes and shrugging body language as he softly strums his guitar, working out the songs for Nebraska.
The rest of the cast is impressive as they orbit around Springsteen in his moments of greatness, insecurity, depression, and fear. His father is played by Stephen Graham, one of the busiest actors in film today. He perfectly captures the bitter and angry man who suffers from depression but does his best to hide his feelings in silence.
Springsteen’s mom, Adele, is played by Gaby Hoffmann, who gives us a brief sample of the woman who sometimes feared her husband and often couldn’t get through to him. She did support her son, however, even when he was a teenage musician in a garage band.
Odessa Young plays Faye, Springsteen’s love interest who is actually a fictional composite character Cooper used to represent the high and lows of Springsteen’s romantic relationships during the time. She’s a single mom and a fan, but also a girl Springsteen would know from his neighborhood. It’s a heart-breaking relationship that’s not sustainable for the musician, who wants to be the good guy and father figure but simply isn’t prepared for that large step.
But the most interesting partnership in the film is between Springsteen and his manager, Jon Landau. It’s the most honest bond he has at the time. These two men are much more than client and manager; they are true friends whose love and respect for each other many in the entertainment industry would cherish.
Jeremy Strong portrays Landau with a softness and reserve. He listens patiently as Springsteen struggles to describe what he feels and what he needs to move forward with not only this project, but his life. Strong also displays Landau’s determination and courage in a scene where he tells a record producer that Nebraska will be made the way Springsteen wants it to be made.
I’ve seen Bruce Springsteen live in concert four times beginning in 1978, when I learned what all the fuss was about. I had enjoyed his early albums but that first concert in Ithaca, New York, sealed the deal and I’ve been a fan for life.
Watching the film brought back the magic I felt about Springsteen that first time I saw him – only three years before the film takes place. It also gave me an appreciation for both the musical and emotional journey he was on at the time and over the course of his long and enduring career.
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Really strong take on what makes this biopic work. The part about Springsteen going backwards to four-track while everyone expected another arena tour is such a gutsy move most artists wouldnt risk. I remember hearing Nebraska for the first time and thinking how sparse it sounded, but that was the whole point. Scott Cooper nailing teh intimate vibe makes all the differnce here.