The BFI London Film Festival screening of the latest entry in Hollywood’s recent string of prestige musician biopics was unsurprisingly packed, but no one knew what to expect going in. Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere has somewhat slipped under the radar and has received little fanfare compared to the previous biopic hits like Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman and A Complete Unknown. But there may be a reason for it…
Springsteen Slogs
You may notice that all efforts to promote the movie are banking on Jeremy Allen White. Of course,he is the lead star, you may say, but when watching the movie it’s clear why they’re holding onto him so tightly. It’s really because he is the only thing this movie has going for it.
I don’t know much about Bruce Springsteen but it’s pretty clear they chose the wrong part of his life to focus on – despite it sounding like an Academy Award-winning idea on paper.
We follow Bruce just as he hits a rocky point in his life. Fame, his strained relationship with his father, loneliness, and his own mental health is taking a toll on Bruce, who begins to craft the album that would become Nebraska. The movie takes us on a sort-of spiritual journey as Bruce crafts this niche and seemingly unmarketable album, all while struggling to keep and maintain relationships with friends and family.
Despite all these turmoils, it all remains surface level and we don’t delve deeper into Bruce’s psyche, besides some childhood flashbacks, instead we watch as Bruce uses his anguish to create Nebraska, and even then we’re not watching anything remotely groundbreaking or remotely interesting to watch. The film is quite simply a total dud.
Betting on White
The movie blurs the line between a good biopic and a movie made to be OSCAR-bait and a lot of the time it feels like the latter.
Jeremy Allan White is one of Springsteen’s saving graces, and while I cannot comment on how accurate his depiction of Bruce Springsteen is, I can say that while I enjoyed his performance, I don’t think he really delivered anything new to the table – not that I’ve seen from him thus far, anyway. White is an actor I believe will get an OSCAR-nomination one day, but Springsteen won’t be it – though the OSCARS have been incredibly unpredictable in recent years, so only time will tell.
Newly crowned Emmy-winner, Stephen Graham makes an appearance as Douglas Springsteen, Bruce’s father. Graham is a natural talent and is great in pretty much everything I’ve seen him in, Springsteen isn’t different and like White, Graham is one of the saving graces.Unfortunately, his later and more sentimental scenes near the tailend of the movie is tainted by some distracting heavy-handed make-up.
No one will give you a greater sense of déjà vu then that of Jeremy Strong in what feels like his one-hundredthrole playing some sort of business/coroproate/lawyer suit (see “The Apprentice”, “The Big Short”, “Sucession”).
Is he good at doing it? Yeah.
Does he bring anything different to this new version in the Jeremy Strong Multiverse of Business-types? Not at all.
Strong isn’t miscast as Jon Landau, Springsteen’s music manager and producer, he’s as good as he usually is, it’s just that because it’s so similar to his previous performance, I feel like casting someone else would have made a world of difference for the role. Strong should also consider firing his agent or simply retire and get a job in an office so we he doesn’t have to play some variation of the same character every year, and we still have The Social Reckoning (where he’ll be playing one of hell’s future tenants: Mark Zuckerberg) to look forward to.
I’ve Literally Nothing Else to Say
I’m trying to think of other things to discuss about Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, but it’s such an uninteresting slog of a movie that it feels more like a book report that’s been cut down for time. It tells you it has a lot to say without making you feel anything, the performances are fine but you can only get so far with fine performances in such a boring movie (the person next to me fell asleep).
