Following in the theme of music biopics which have taken the film industry in recent years, “Springsteen; Deliver Me from Nowhere” — based on the book of a similar title follows Bruce Springsteen in 1981 and ‘82 after his album “The River” had just wrapped up touring. It follows Springsteen through his personal struggles with his past and how these experiences shaped the culminating project of the period “Nebraska,” a stark move away from his earlier style.
The movie is full of discreet references to the real state of the world at the time; clothes, colors, cars, ways of speaking, etc. The kind of extreme accuracy which we have come to know in the modern biopic. For someone who lived through this period of time, these references may come as a warm surprise and a reason to watch the film. However, for a younger audience, they are supposed to be the trappings around what should be an interesting story — and the story is not all that interesting.
It is difficult to depict a person’s struggle with depression through film, especially while juggling multiple other plot-lines and covering multiple years. This may be the film’s biggest weakness; it tries to do too much.
Clearly limited by the actual events which unfolded to give the movie its source material, there is already so little creativity allotted. Then, to try to fit in these real events, fleshing them out enough to be understood by a wider audience, all within a span of two hours.
This is not to say that the story is not engaging. While watching the film, I was compassionate toward Bruce and felt empowered by the way that his manager, Jon, stood up for him against the executives and marketing individuals who wanted another grand slam of an album. Seeing the way that throwing himself into his art strained his other relationships was a moving part of the film, but it all felt so quick and so shallow.
Just as a scene would feel like it was moving along nicely and grounding the plot in a particular time, a song would start playing before it would cut to another scene. This manifested in stuttery and choppy movements between each significant moment. For example, the scene where Bruce angrily drives his car faster and faster before slamming on the breaks and almost spinning out lacked a kind of tension that would make the audience genuinely nervous. Instead of a number of events building up to push him closer to the edge before putting himself in danger, it seems that he did this solely because of Faye’s quick exit of his car. Even visually, the scene comes on suddenly and feels forced as a result.
The movie does have some strong points. The scenes in the Stone Pony really bring out the feelings of what music was about at the time — people gathering in a cramped, shared space to listen and move. Jeremy Allen White does an excellent job of exaggerated facial expressions and sweat is ubiquitous throughout the whole thing. It makes the audience feel the effort and exertion going into the lyrics sung on stage and how they moved not just the listeners but the performers as well.
All in all, “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” is not a movie to avoid. I think that in the scope of musical biopics, it will reveal itself as an interesting middle-point; useful for others to be compared against. If you have some time or are particularly a Springsteen fan, give it a watch and see how it makes you feel.
