When a film about the Bruce Springsteen album “Nebraska” was announced with Scott Cooper directing, I was excited due to it being one of my favorite albums. Leaving the movie theater, that excitement then soon turned into disappointment. The movie has a run time of one hour and 59 minutes. This film is rated PG-13 due to sexual content, strong language, thematic material and smoking.
“Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” is a musical biopic that tells the story of American rock legend Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White,) known by his nickname “The Boss,” as he is coming off his “The River” tour. After ending this massive tour and settling back into life, Springsteen decides to start writing songs for his upcoming album “Nebraska,” while diving into the fears of his past, which cause him problems beyond belief.
White’s performance in this movie as Springsteen blew me away, as he really embodied the character and personality. White starred in several phenomenal movies and shows such as “The Bear” (Carmen Berzatto,) “Shameless” (Lip Gallagher) and “The Iron Claw”(Kerry Von Eric,) all of which he has either been nominated for or won an award for. None of these roles, however, required him to sing or play guitar live like he does in this film.
When I originally heard that White was going to star as Springsteen, I thought nothing of it since he’s a great actor and looks pretty similar to The Boss. However, when I heard that he was going to sing and play guitar in the movie, I didn’t think he could pull it off. When going into the theater, I couldn’t believe what my ears were listening to. White sounded exactly like Springsteen and blew my expectations away. In preparation for the film, White worked for six months with world-renowned vocal coach Eric Vietro, who helped him achieve his identical Springsteen singing style. Now, despite White’s amazing performance in this movie, it doesn’t save the film from the downsides that we’re in it.
When watching the movie, it felt like every other musical biopic that I watched, with the main character being a really good musician who is rising in fame while also having to deal with a love interest that they neglect throughout the movie. In the film, Springsteen has an on-and-off love affair with Faye (Odessa Young), which he mistreats throughout the movie. Faye wasn’t a real person, but was apparently supposed to represent the number of girlfriends Springsteen had throughout his early 20s-30s.
Although Young did really well in her role as Faye, I feel as if this movie should have been expanded more on his creation of the “Nebraska” album, rather than having little miniature bits of the movie be focused on this relationship. If this movie had either kept the movie 90% focused on the album and 10% of the relationship, or 50% of the album and the other 50% on the relationship, this whole relationship idea would have been tied in really well.
Another criticism that I had seen with this movie was about how I would have really liked to see more of Springsteen’s past talked about. The movie focuses on Springsteen’s younger self, but I would have really liked to see his life before fame, when he was just starting. I get that this movie is focused on a specific time period, but a biopic should always capture the past of someone, instead of just leaving it in the past.
Overall, this movie wasn’t bad. I had really high hopes and expectations for this movie, but I felt really underwhelmed when watching the film. I’d say that the high point of this movie was White’s performance 100%, but besides that, this movie was just okay. If you are an avid movie enjoyer, I’d say it’s worth watching. However, if you are a huge fan of The Boss, I wouldn’t expect much. The movie has a run time of one hour and 59 minutes. This film is rated PG-13 due to sexual content, strong language, thematic material and smoking.
