Jeremy Allen White
“SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE” My rating: B+ (In theaters)
120 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
Less rock concert than chamber piece, “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” is an intimate drama about a guy losing his mind at the same time he’s becoming one of the most famous entertainers on the planet.
As a longtime fan of the Boss, I found Scott Cooper’s film unexpectedly moving, and not just because of the brilliance of Bruce Springsteen’s songwriting.
The film is about the creative process, sure, but it’s also about family dysfunction, personal demons, and the lifelong struggle to discover one’s true essence even when the rest of the world is all too eager to dictate what it expects you to be.
Unfolding over a year in the early 1980s, “Deliver Me…” finds Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White, stupendous) riding high from his just-completed “River” tour…or is he? Bruce finds little satisfaction with his new star status (first new car, lakeside rental in rural Jersey, guest gigs at the Stony Pony in Asbury Park). Something’s missing.
The screenplay by Cooper (adapting Warren Zanes’ book) follows Bruce’s retreat to his hideaway in the country where he lays low and begins writing the material that will become his album “Nebraska.” It’s less a pleasurable vacation than a furious quest. The man has ideas — dark ones at that — circling around in his head that demand expression in song.
Periodically the film delivers black-and-white flashbacks to Bruce’s childhood with a protective mother (Gaby Hoffmann) and a struggling working class father (Steven Graham) who all too often takes out his frustrations on his loved ones.
These digressions are integral to understanding the singer and his songs. Childhood trauma finds its way into the music…but, then, so do little moments of grace (dancing with Mom, being driven into the country by Dad for a romp in the cornfields). In some cases you can draw a direct line from Bruce’s boyhood to individual songs (“My Father’s House,” “Used Cars”).
Perhaps the most problematical element of “Deliver Me…” is the brief romance between Bruce and a young waitress/mother named Faye (Odessa Young). Faye is a composite character, an amalgam of women Springsteen dated during this period. Young is solid in the role but it’s something of a thankless task…Bruce is simply so at sea with his own mental and emotional health that romantic commitment to another human being is out of the question.
Professional relationships are a bit easier to navigate. Jeremy Strong is hugely effective as manager Jon Landau, who runs interference for his famous client and appears to care more for Bruce’s well-being than for the moneymaking machine he could soon become. When Bruce decides to release the rough demos of his “Nebraska” songs — acoustic mono, no backup musicians, no fancy mastering, no portrait on the album cover, no tour, no press — it is Landau who stands up to record company bigwigs who dismiss Springsteen’s “folk record” as a disaster in the making.
Jeremy Strong
Late in the film we see Bruce in his first session with a psychiatrist, but throughout “Deliver Me From Nowhere” we see our man making small incremental steps toward healing. The first of these is recognizing that something’s wrong.
The performances are terrific throughout, but White’s Bruce is so good that he becomes his own person. It’s not an imitation — although White’s vocals and stage movements are uncannily accurate — but rather a reinterpretation. There were moments when I forgot this was a film specifically about Springsteen and regarded it as a much bigger examination of the artistic imperative. Which is saying something.
I fully expect an Oscar nomination for White…and another for Graham, whose Springsteen pere is a sad nightmare of blue-collar disappointment and emotional turmoil. This British actor has only a few moments of screen time, but the impression he makes on the viewer gives the film a thematic backbone that keeps everything moving.
Will “Deliver Me From Nowhere” appeal to those merely on the fringes of Springsteeniana? It’s a tough call. I found the process of creating “Nebraska” and tracing the LP’s roots back to boyhood incredibly involving…but then I know these songs by heart.
But even a viewer who has never heard of Bruce Springsteen should respond to the very human conflicts depicted here.
Fathers and sons. Failed love. Lifelong friendship. These are universal stepping stones in human life, and “Deliver Me From Nowhere” finds both the beauty and the dread.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 