'Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere' review: Jeremy Allen White can't escape 'The Bear' in Bruce Springsteen biopic
At times, watching Bruce Springsteen biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere feels like watching a musical episode of The Bear.
The most obvious similarity is that Jeremy Allen White leads both projects, but The Bear comparisons aren't solely his fault. Even without White, writer-director Scott Cooper's take on the Boss is eerily reminiscent of Carmy Berzatto: He's a tortured artist haunted by a difficult family life. His quest for perfection in his work leads him to push away everyone around him, including his girlfriend, Faye (Odessa Young). He's also struggling with his mental health, bottling up his darker feelings and expressing them in his music.
The latter is ostensibly the focus of Deliver Me From Nowhere, which chronicles the writing and recording of Springsteen's sixth studio album, Nebraska. But while the film's music remains classic as ever, and while White does an admirable job channeling Springsteen, Deliver Me From Nowhere fails to deliver anything revelatory about the actual emotions behind the music.
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Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere falls into cliché.
Like 2024's Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, Deliver Me From Nowhere opts not to chart its subject's career from beginning to end. Instead, when Deliver Me From Nowhere opens, Springsteen is already a star, growling out "Born to Run" in front of a rapturous crowd on his sold-out The River Tour.
Despite being a massive success, Springsteen is a troubled soul. He thinks often of his childhood — rendered in black and white in the film — primarily his relationship with his abusive father (Adolescence's Stephen Graham) and concerned mother (Gaby Hoffmann). Between early concert footage and these flashbacks, Deliver Me From Nowhere falls quickly into cliché. But at least the film's concert and recording studio sessions provide it with a jolt of musical adrenaline. The flashbacks, on the other hand, are a cheap shortcut to trauma.
Springsteen's father's characterization boils down to the constant presence of a lit cigarette and a can of beer. Springsteen's mother is the stereotypical portrait of a woman trapped in a marriage with a dangerous man. The two scream at each other behind closed doors, the kind of scene that's been done to death. Yet it's this childhood and these relationships that serve as the bedrock of Springsteen's anxieties as he works on Nebraska. And because that past is so thinly drawn, the core of the movie falls flat.
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere can't find the pain in the music.
Deliver Me From Nowhere uses the oldest tricks in the book to convey Springsteen's depression. He lays, despondent, around his rental house. He almost breaks down while driving, speeding his car toward oblivion before braking and letting out a yell.
Yet these images, while obvious signifiers of pain, lack a clear motivation. Deliver Me From Nowhere is always telling audiences that Springsteen is suffering. At one point, Springsteen mentions that when he goes home, "the quiet can get a little loud," a line that feels ripped straight from The Bear. Elsewhere, his music producer Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) remarks on the feelings of guilt and shame Springsteen evokes in his Nebraska recordings.
Neither the guilt nor the shame come through in Springsteen's writing and recording process, though. Instead, the process reads as simplistically linear: Springsteen watches Terrence Malick's Badlands; researches its real-life inspiration, murderer Charles Starkweather; then turns around and writes the song "Nebraska." He recalls his father taking him and his sister to play near a mansion on a hill, and boom, "Mansion on the Hill" is born. There are no surprises, no real discoveries about the emotions driving the music.
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Even drama surrounding Springsteen's personal life and his relationship with Faye feels empty. Their early interactions are rife with sappy-sweet, contrived dialogue, while Springsteen's decision to distance himself from her rings hollow. A scene where Faye confronts Springsteen about how absent he is could easily be subbed out for Carmy and Claire's (Molly Gordon) confrontation from The Bear Season 4, and you'd have the same result.
Jeremy Allen White delivers a great performance as Bruce Springsteen.
As flawed as Deliver Me From Nowhere is, one area where it doesn't falter is the casting of White as Springsteen. Camouflaged somewhat behind a pair of brown contacts and some sideburns, White channels Springsteen's melancholy with the same careful vulnerability that earned him an Emmy for The Bear. Make no mistake, though. While the arcs of both Carmy and Springsteen are oddly similar, these are not copycat performances.
White's Carmy so often feels on the verge of exploding with anger or grief, while his Springsteen carries a steady sadness with him at all times. If Carmy is a pressure cooker, Springsteen is a deep lake.
White brings his all to Deliver Me From Nowhere's many musical scenes, singing Springsteen's hits and the occasional cover song at the Stone Pony until veins pop out of his neck and his face is covered in sweat. Does his own singing match up seamlessly with the Boss's? No way. But the swelling energy of the concert sequences and White's full-throated commitment bring the performances home.
Still, White does his best work in Deliver Me From Nowhere's quietest moments. In one sequence, he sits in silence for a good long while before his face crumples and he lets out great, heaving sobs. It's an astounding moment of catharsis, and further proof of White's ability as a performer to bring deep sorrow to life. If only the rest of Deliver Me From Nowhere had the emotional heft to back that sequence up.
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere was reviewed out of the New York Film Festival. It hits theaters Oct. 24.
Topics Film
Belen Edwards is an Entertainment Reporter at Mashable. She covers movies and TV with a focus on fantasy and science fiction, adaptations, animation, and more nerdy goodness. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Television Critics Association, as well as a Tomatometer-approved critic.
