★★ (2 out of 4)
Hobbled by a clumsy script and stagnant direction by Scott Cooper, “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” rises above its considerable flaws on the strength of watching Bruce Springsteen, studiously acted by Jeremy Allen White, show depression who’s the boss.
Do movies about depression have to be this depressing? No—think “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “Silver Linings Playbook”—but this one is. Cooper confuses flatly depicting the rock icon’s plunge into darkness with artful human drama. That’s impossible when the creative spark, brilliantly evident in Springsteen’s music, fades to embers on screen.
Cooper deserves credit for dodging the rock biopic boilerplate of retro-fitting a complicated life to an artist’s greatest hits. But this meandering, semi-fictionalized mess is no substitute. There was genuine intimacy and urgency in “Springsteen on Broadway,” the 2017 one-man show in which the Boss took a deep dive into his turbulent life and times in music.
This biopic rises above a clumsy script and stagnant direction...on the strength of watching Bruce Springsteen, studiously acted by Jeremy Allen White, show depression who’s the boss.
In adapting Warren Zanes’ 2023 nonfiction book, “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” Cooper focuses on the making of “Nebraska,” an introspective, despairing DIY album from 1982 (The Boss was 32 at the time). The songs about society’s outcasts connected strongly to Springsteen’s own depression brought on by his relationship with his abusive father (Stephen Graham), seen in arty, black-and-white flashbacks that mirror a severe, undiagnosed mental illness.
The Boss’s bosses at CBS Records hate the “Nebraska” idea, though his loyal manager, Jon Landau (an overly mannered and actorish Jeremy Strong), pushes it through fully knowing the next album, “Born in the USA” will be packed with commercial hits. Even though the title song was written in support of cruelly neglected Vietnam vets, it was widely misinterpreted as a patriotic anthem.
Cooper clearly shares the sales concern since he’s quick to reveal The Boss rocking the house with his early hit “Born to Run” to show us White’s skilled mimicry of the Springsteen rasp without actually capturing the deep soulful roar eating at his insides. There are also snippets of “I’m on Fire” and “Hungry Heart” to placate the masses without a hint of the masterful “State Trooper,” a bruised heart song that might be the key track on “Nebraska.”
Most galling to this Springsteen admirer is the invention of a composite love interest in the form of a diner waitress and single mother named Faye (my sympathies to misused actress Odessa Young). Did Cooper really need a Hollywood romance? Or was he simply not up to the task of bringing dramatic dynamism to The Boss moping in the bedroom of a rented house in Colts Neck, NJ while writing lyrics in a notebook?
It’s also irksome that Cooper mostly ignores Springsteen’s lifelong political and personal bond with the common man chasing an increasingly elusive American dream. The filmmaker prefers to place a halo over Springsteen staring creatively into space, enjoying a pat reconciliation with his father and heading into what passes for a happy ending by accepting therapy and antidepressants. No Springsteen song has ever sold such glib dishonesty. And even Allen, try as he might, can’t make us swallow the fantasy as more than a brilliant disguise. Deliver us, indeed.