By Now playing at a multiplex near everybody:
SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE
(Dir. Scott Cooper, 2025)
Like James Mangold’s A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, Scott Cooper’s new Bruce Springsteen drama is a specific biopic, centering on a crucial period instead of a full career overview. Based on Warren Zanes’ 2023 book of the same name, the narrative concerns the making of the Boss’s classic 1982 album, Nebraska, which was a departure for the artist; a spare, haunting acoustic album that was in a different world from the radio hits, and arena anthems, which had previously dominated his discography.
Jeremy Allen White (Shameless, The Bear) fills Springsteen’s shoes admirably, giving an intensely troubled performance as a man who, as Bruce would say is “livin’ in his own skin, and can’t stand the company.” After coming off a huge stadium tour for his best-selling double album, The River, which yielded his first top 10 single “Hungry Heart,” the musician finds himself wanting to explore a different direction.
That involved recording some spare demos on a crude four-track cassette recorder in a rented house in Colt’s Neck, New Jersey, where he tells engineer Mike Batlan (Paul Hauser), “It doesn’t have to be perfect, I want it to feel like in the room all by myself.” Meanwhile, Springsteen’s stoical manager, Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong), fends off CBS exec Al Teller (David Krumholtz), who wants something more commercial as the singer-songwriter is on the verge of superstardom.
Interspersed throughout the movie are black and white flashbacks depicting Springsteen’s father Douglas (Stephen Graham), abusing him, and his mother, Adele (Gaby Hoffmann), which inform our protagonist’s writing as does a book of Flannery O’Conner’s work, and, more importantly, his coming across Terrence Mallick’s 1973 crime classic BADLANDS on TV. This inspired Nebraska’s title track, told in the voice of serial killer, Charles Starkweather, while the record’s other songs illustrated the desperate musings of a cast of guilt-ridden outsiders fighting interpersonal demons.
The biggest liberty that Cooper’s screenplay takes with Springsteen’s story is the addition of a fictitious girlfriend, Faye Romano, played by Odessa Young. As a Jersey Girl, who is a single mother working as a waitress in a diner named Frankie’s, Faye seems like should could’ve been a subject of one the Boss’s ‘70s songs, and Young puts in an affecting turn as the fan turned love interest on the side, but I’m not sure it was a necessary element in this scenario. But the couple’s scenes did get to me a bit emotionally (yeah, I teared up a few times) so I’m not complaining.
As a musical biopic largely dealing with depression over daddy issues, this lowkey, downbeat treatise is more like Bill Pohlad’s 2014 Brian Wilson biopic than it is like A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. Despite a few loud concert scenes, it’s mostly a downbeat, introspective affair, much like the album it centers on, with some of its best moments being about Springsteen’s friendship with Landau. White’s immersion into the character isn’t as invested, and surprising as Timothy Chamalet’s turn as Dylan last year, but its more than convincing as he consistently nails the nuances of the legendary musician, and his vocals on a bunch of the Boss’s very well known (and very well worn) iconic tunes.
The soundtrack mixes White’s vocals with Springsteen’s throughout the film, and, even as a big fan, there were times I wasn’t sure who I was hearing at times, which means for me, they really pulled off the conceit. I bet other, more hardcore fans may be less impressed, but, while I feel it has some over simplistic dialogue, a few predictable story beats, and some cringy clichés (though of the sort that are unavoidable in biopic formulas); DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE is overall a stirringly poignant portrait of as incredible (and incredibly sensitive) artist at the crossroad of fame, and finding oneself.
More later…
