Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is a biopic of ‘the boss’ starring Jeremy Allen White. It is not cradle to grave and do not expect the usual crowd-pleasing beats. There isn’t a single montage. Instead, it focuses on 1981, the making of his sixth album, Nebraska, and his mental troubles at that time. This will doubtless satisfy the completists. But non-completists – I could have named only two of his songs, tops – may wonder if it’s that interesting. Also, as White’s performance isn’t a million miles from tortured chef Carmy in Disney+’s The Bear I kept expecting him to put down his guitar and go tweeze micro-herbs on some fancy dish. This may be a problem.
‘I know who you are,’ says a fan. ‘That makes one of us,’ he replies. I cringed
Based on a book by Warren Zanes, the film is directed by Scott Cooper and the basic set-up is this: after his fifth album, The River, Springsteen is on the brink of global superstardom while his record company awaits a further album of big studio hits. But he is struggling with fame and chooses to retreat to a rented ranch house in New Jersey. Depressed and alone, he flicks though Flannery O’Connor and watches Terrence Malick’s Badlands on repeat. These are his inspirations but quite how they feed his imagination is never that clear. Still, new songs come to him, which he records in the bedroom on to a cassette tape. It’s just him, his acoustic guitar, and his ghosts. In particular, he must grapple with his childhood and his violent, alcoholic father (Stephen Graham), memories that play out via monotone flashbacks. (His mother is never interrogated.) There’s also his more recent romance with a lovely waitress (an underused Odessa Young) who asks him: ‘Unless you can be honest with yourself how can you be honest with me?’ She also tells him: ‘Facing yourself terrifies you.’ The psychology is very much on the nose. ‘I know who you are,’ says a fan. ‘That makes one of us,’ he replies. I cringed.
The other main character is Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong), his manager who, unusually, does not ply him with drink/drugs/girls while ripping him off. Landau is tender, caring, protects Bruce’s artistic integrity. We could all do with a Jon Landau in our lives. That said, he is also afflicted by the need to spell everything out. In conversation with his wife he will keep telling her that Bruce is working on something ‘personal and dark’. Don’t we know that already? What did we imagine he was doing all alone in that bedroom? Updating ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’? But there are decent and funny moments. Springsteen is, it is said, prouder of Nebraska than any of his other albums but when Landau starts playing it to a record company executive his first question is: ‘Is it like that all the way through?’
The third act is mostly concerned with taking the cassette into the studio to record the songs with the E Street Band but the sound is never the way Springsteen wants it. In fact, the big production values are killing the vibe. This leads to many discussions with sound technicians while knobs are endlessly twiddled. Here, it tips from slightly dull to very. I won’t say what eventually ends up on vinyl because, if you’re a non-completist, not in the know, it’s kind of a spoiler and this needs all the narrative oomph it can get.
Things are low-energy and downbeat throughout bar one electrifying version of ‘Born to Run’. White does not imitate Springsteen as such but, the fans say, he does capture the posture, the intonation, the vocals. (He trained for months.) Still, it’s such a hunched, brooding, interior performance that I mostly saw Carmy. (What’s he doing in a recording studio? Those micro-herbs aren’t going to tweeze themselves…) As for its message – you have to deal with your past – is it that interesting?
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