Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. A Review

SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE

I wonder now if there is a movement to disparage Bruce Springsteen and his musical output. I admit that I am not the biggest fan of The Boss. However, I do like some of his songs. I have sung along to everything from Dancing in the Dark to Radio Nowhere. It is to where I thought the title for the new Springsteen biopic came from the latter. I, for full disclosure, do not understand the cult that Springsteen has around him. I figure therefore that Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere might be for a smaller audience. Deliver Me from Nowhere is not a bad film, which has some good performances in it. It also at times plays more like a biopic of an album than it does of a person. 

Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White) has just wrapped up a successful tour in 1981. Now, the Scion of New Jersey is taking a brief respite to create new music. His manager Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) would prefer that the Boss keep working on new material and get some rest. However, Bruce does sneak off every so often to play at the Stone Pony. Here, he meets Faye Romano (Odessa Young), a single mom who is the sister of one of Bruce's old high school friends. 

Bruce keeps working on his newest material. However, he is also struggling with the memories of his troubled glory days. His father Douglas (Stephen Graham) was an alcoholic who could be abusive, mostly verbally but on occasion physically. Bruce's mother Adele (Gaby Hoffmann) loves and protects her son. All these memories keep going at Bruce. So do the writings of Flannery O'Connor and the film Badlands. The tale of young killer Charles Starkweather (whose story inspired Badlands) soon have Bruce delve deep within his own soul.

Using the most recent technology, Bruce holes up in Landau's rented home and begins recording his acoustic takes. The songs that emerge are sparse, somber and deeply tragic. This dark night of the soul soon takes its toll on his relationship with Faye. It affects his working relationship with both Landau and Bruce's backing group, the E Street Band. His parents, now living in California, also bring about trouble, albeit unintentionally. Douglas disappears, seemingly unaware of where he is in time. 

All these things keep going at Bruce. The record label is displeased with the overall sound of his material. They are more displeased that Bruce will not tour, do press or even release a single from the album. Landau struggles to get the sound that Bruce wants, which is not the polished sound that the studio can get. Will Bruce get the album that will be known as Nebraska out there? Will he come to terms with his unacknowledged depression?

I remember the film Blinded by the Light, which was about the most unlikely Bruce Springsteen fan: a British of Pakistani descent. I was the outlier in absolutely hating Blinded by the Light. I find myself again an outlier in saying that I did not hate Deliver Me from Nowhere. It has many good qualities.

I am generally unfamiliar with Jeremy Allen White. I know of his shows Shameless and The Bear but have yet to see an episode of either. I think White got Bruce Springsteen's raspy voice mostly well. He also can pass for looking like The Boss, albeit from a distance. In terms of an actual performance, White did well in capturing this lost, isolated figure. This Bruce is somber, serious, pretty inward looking.

Perhaps therein lies a problem in Deliver Me from Nowhere. I understand that Nebraska is a dark album. However, I have not heard Nebraska, at least to where I would instantly recognize any of its songs. I figure that like most Americans, I would know Springsteen's follow-up album, Born in the U.S.A. than I would Nebraska. Yes, the title song from Born in the U.S.A. is routinely misinterpreted as being flag-waving when it is anything but. However, the somber nature in Deliver Me from Nowhere makes it hard to believe that this is the same man who could come up with the passionate I'm on Fire, the equally passionate but more upbeat Dancing in the Dark or the slightly less serious but again upbeat Glory Days. 

I understand that Springsteen was dealing with unrecognized depression. However, one gets almost no respite from said downbeat manner until the very end. Also, a lot of Deliver Me from Nowhere seems to be more about Nebraska than about Bruce. There are many scenes of Bruce, Jon, the record producers and the E Street Band in the studio. Oftentimes, they are scenes of Bruce pretty much whining about how they can't get the sound that he wants right. It makes our working-class hero come across as almost an obnoxious artiste versus merely a perfectionist trying something new. Yet, I digress.

In one brief scene, Jon Landau tells his wife that the material Springsteen gave him is very somber and serious. I do not know why Landau would be surprised. The Bruce in Deliver Me from Nowhere could barely crack a smile. Jeremy Allen White is very good in the role. It is unfortunate that he had one mode to play: serious. 

Jeremy Strong is good as Jon Landau, the man who will stand by and believe in Bruce Springsteen no matter what. Writer/director Scott Cooper's adaptation of Warren Zane's Deliver Me from Nowhere did give him some offbeat lines. "I think the Mus came down and kissed you in the mouth", Landau tells Bruce after hearing Born in the U.S.A. (a scene that was good). It took all of me to not start laughing. When they discussed getting the same sound on the album that he got in the home recordings, we got this exchange.

"I don't want to make it better", Bruce says. "I just want to get back to how it was in the bedroom". There, I did openly laugh in the nearly empty theater. Deliver Me from Nowhere has a set of strange, cliched lines. When a car salesman is presenting the car that Bruce will buy, he tells him, "I know who you are". Replies Bruce, "Well, that makes one of us". I found that a bit much.

The film has strong supporting work from others as well. Odessa Young did well as Faye, the love that Bruce eventually lost. Stephen Graham's Douglas does double duty playing the younger father as well as the older father. Director Cooper decided to film the flashbacks in black-and-white. While this was not a distraction, I did find it a bit much as well. I especially found it a bit overboard when the adult Bruce comes into the scene with his younger self. 

I do not think that you have to be a Bruce Springsteen super-fan to enjoy Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. I do think that it would help. Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is in the end is more about the making of Nebraska than about the making of The Boss.

Born 1949

DECISION: C+