Review: “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere”

Bruce Springsteen is dark. Bruce Springsteen is depressing. He’s complicated and tormented. 

 
These statements do not, perhaps, resonate with everyone. To many of the younger Irish generation, it may be proposed that Bruce Springsteen is not a ‘cool’ figure. He hasn’t been afforded the same trendy image revamp as his contemporaries, such as Fleetwood Mac or The Smiths. He is a figure not unlike Garth Brooks in status, with a fanbase of fist-pumping dads in Croke Park, spilling beer from plastic cups and chanting “Bruuuce!” 

Yet beneath the denim and anthemic stadium rock has always lain a songwriter with ghosts. After all, even the bombastic Born in the USA opens with: “Born down in a dead man’s town / First kick I took was when I hit the ground.”

Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere presents a Bruce Springsteen haunted by his past. In 1981, he is an emerging rock superstar, fresh off his tour of The River. He should be on top of the world – the media are clamouring for him, record labels sing his praises, and fans on the street stop him to mention his work. But memories of his childhood and abusive father, paired with a black cloud of depression, prevent him from enjoying his newfound fame. From this depression arises a collection of stark, howling folk songs filled with tales of murder, darkness and deceit, such as Atlantic City and Highway Patrolman; all of which become the 1982 album Nebraska.

The landscapes of this movie – cold, barren winter nights trekking across New York and rural New Jersey – certainly reflect the inner torment we witness in Springsteen. Jeremy Allen White, fitted with brown contacts and an endless supply of checked shirts, plays a brooding Bruce Springsteen well. Succession’s Jeremy Strong is a fine John Landau. 

And yet, Deliver Me from Nowhere seems to leave the viewer wondering: “Who is this for?” 

Springsteen fans will know the tale of Nebraska’s creation already. It’s extensively covered in both Warren Zanes’ Deliver Me from Nowhere, on which the film is based, and Bruce’s own autobiography Born to Run. They are aware of what makes it unique – and its backstory is often discussed in fan forums. They will recognise the nods to punk duo Suicide, whose minimalist darkness helped shape Nebraska’s tone, or the members of the E Street Band, who appear only briefly and without dialogue. Simply put, for fans there is nothing new here: no fresh revelations or unexpected terrain.

This then puts into question the appeal of this film to those unfamiliar with the Springsteen canon. A fourth-place box-office opening and a drop from the top five grossing films in the second weekend indicate this appeal is low. This, paired with a 56% per cent Rotten Tomatoes critic score, makes one wonder just how high interest in a Bruce Springsteen movie is.

Perhaps the film would have been served better by exploring the political and social landscapes that inspired Nebraska. While it artfully captures Springsteen’s personal and professional struggles, it flinches from engaging with the deeper and broader themes that permeate the album. Songs such as Johnny 99 paint a picture of austerity and unemployment. Its characters are men fired from auto plants and factories – casualties of the economic despair that haunted Reagan’s America and Nebraska alike. 

Springsteen himself has noted this aspect of Nebraska from as early as 1984. At an election campaign stop in Springsteen’s native New Jersey, Reagan likened himself to the singer.  

Days later, Bruce introduced Johnny 99 with a then-rare political speech at a Pittsburgh show: “Well, the president was mentioning my name in his speech the other day – and I kind of got to wondering what his favourite album of mine must have been, you know? I don’t think it was the Nebraska album. I don’t think he’s been listening to this one.” 

Leaving these key elements to the wayside results in a rather bloodless film in Deliver Me from Nowhere. There is a romance storyline involving the fictional Faye Morano, a young single mother, which presented as more cliché and less consequential than it seems to intend to be. Her character reads hollow – and her intended purpose in spurring on Bruce’s character development does too. Odessa Young does well with the material given, but a love story feels unnecessary in a film that has much left to explore.

That said, Deliver Me from Nowhere is not without its highlights. A final scene involving Springsteen and his father is marvellously acted by Allen White and Stephen Graham. The film performs well as a meditation on depression and the persistence of childhood trauma into adulthood, and on the contrasts of fame and isolation. Its imagery is hauntingly stunning, effectively capturing the barren darkness of Springsteen’s mind during the creation of Nebraska. It presents a Springsteen far from the popular image he retains today, and does so well. 

Indeed, the film is far from an unenjoyable watch – but it may leave old fans and newcomers alike wishing for more. Bruce Springsteen is dark. Bruce Springsteen is tormented. But so is the world around him, and Deliver Me from Nowhere doesn’t quite seem to find it.