Cert – 12, Run-time – 1 hour 59 minutes, Director – Scott Cooper
While movie offers and executive demands for more commercial work pile up, Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White) finds his passion fuelled by a stripped-back switch in style, and his most personal songs to date, for album Nebraska.
There’s not a great deal of musical performance in Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. We hear the end of Born To Run and a recording session for Born In The USA, but perhaps the reason for this is more to focus on just how stripped-back the songs actually focused on are in comparison. No full band, no expensive production room with all kinds of kit. Just Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White), a guitar, harmonica, a bedroom set-up, and the help of Paul Walter Hauser’s recording engineer Mike.
The music created goes to form his 1982 album Nebraska, a departure from the music that was just starting to make him a star across America and lead him to offers of film roles. Record label execs (particularly David Krumholtz’s) want the singer-songwriter to continue with more commercial ventures, however as he reflects on his childhood and abusive father (Stephen Graham) and current relationship with Odessa Young’s Faye Romano inspiration strikes and leads to a stripped-back, personal selection of tracks.
Music and inspiration appear to split somewhat as the film goes on, especially in the second half. While the moments focusing on Springsteen fighting for the music on the cassette to be released as it sounds that way, raw and in-the-moment without any studio effects or tinkering. There’s something about it that means more that he’s not giving away, although we’re seeing that confronted more as he visits locations from his past. It’s these beats, and those focusing on his relationship with Romano, that feel much more conventional when it comes to music biopics of the last few years. Such moments may be watchable, and have a bigger push in latter stages when delving more into the titular star’s mind and mental health, but such points are properly confronted quite late into the run-time.
In general, the first half of the film feels like a lot of build-up to the second, although largely realised once the idea of Nebraska is committed to and what would become Born In The USA is put to one side. It’s just not until we get into the studio and how much Springsteen cares about Nebraska is shown in White’s performance as he becomes increasingly frustrated at not matching the results on the initially intended as a demo cassette. This is the point where things really click, and I sat there slightly wishing that the click was slightly louder and expanded upon, as it’s where the most interesting beats of the film lie – especially in relation to the artist being focused on, again just as he’s breaking out into national stardom.
There’s something of a film about being caught between two states, pushes, mindsets and stages of life in Deliver Me From Nowhere and to some extent the film itself feels slightly caught between two states. Yet, while both contribute to adding to the personal angles of the songs that are heard throughout there are more conventional music biopic elements throughout which sometimes hold things back from being fully effective and engaging, even if still remaining watchable. Scott Cooper’s film doesn’t feel wholly familiar and just about avoids outstaying its welcome, but could absolutely do with more of its studio sequences and Springsteen’s push to maintain the original sound of his original recording session, where much of Allen White’s performance hits best.
When confronting things most directly and looking at the personal sides of Nebraska and Springsteen’s passion for it Deliver Me From Nowhere breaks out from its more conventional moments with greater interest from the creative team and audience.
Just A Little Bit Random 