I sat down with Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere with little knowledge of the man himself. Sure, like most humans on earth, I was familiar with the hits (Born in the USA, Born to Run, and Glory Days were staples of my barbecues and ballgames as much as they were anyone else’s), but I’d never dove deep into his catalog, and as such never uncovered the jeweled wonder that is Nebraska. All this to say, the film cares much more deeply about Nebraska and its creation than I perhaps ever will. It’s that love for the album, and its creation, that is both the benefit, and hindrance, of the film, as the film languishes in the drama of creating and finishing this work, and every wonderand wart within the film stems directly from said drama.
Watching Springsteen is very akin to watching something drown. The atmosphere of the film is brutally somber and oppressive, and even the brief divergences to the outside world offer little relief, where it be Springsteen’s befuddled manager trying to make sense of what’s going on in the head of his beloved client and friend; or Bruce’s ill-fated love affair with a hometown girl. It creates a difficult environment to sit with, as we see Bruce grappling with major emotional turmoil, trying to find ways out in friends and lovers, small breaches, chances to breathe, but always Springsteen falls back beneath the water.
The film is deeply felt and sensitive, with Jeremy Allen White playing Springsteen with a tenderness and fragility that was surprising from what I’d previously seen as such a larger-than-life character, but as Springsteen himself says when someone mentions they know him, “that makes one of us”. White never quite reaches Springsteen, not all the way, within his time on screen. Though we never doubt his depth of feeling, or why he was so desired by others, there’s a sparkling, working-man charm that never quite rises in White. The actor does, however, get to something real with his performance, and I honestly think it’s preferable, as we never verge too far into caricature in the process, bringing out the reality of the character, even if we never quite reach the reality of the man.
Like so many movies of its ilk, one of the more disappointing parts of Deliver Me from Nowhere is the romance subplot. While I understand the desire to give the film a bit of lightness through this relationship, it often feels unimportant, even clunky, despite a perfectly serviceable performance from Odessa Young. Much like the other women in the movie, Young acts more as a sounding board for Springsteen’s emotions than a living breathing character in her own right, and one wishes that they had used this time to explore one of the other subplots more deeply.
That is not to say none of the film’s subplots work. Indeed, one of the truly sparkling parts of the film is Springsteen’s fraught relationship with his father. A troubled man, taken to alcohol and abusive behaviors, Bruce nonetheless would stay up nights to see his father before going to bed, wanting any chance at a relationship with him. Stephen Graham has been an actor on the rise in recent years, showing special skill in the Netflix drama “Adolescence”, and though he doesn’t re-invent the wheel as far as “Drunk Fathers” go, he is still able to balance his raw anger with a delicate hurt to resonant results. Moments near the end where we get to see Bruce with his aging father, despite some shoddy makeup work, ring with heart and sensitivity, creating some of the piece’s most powerful moments.
Jeremy Strong’s performance as Jon Landau is an odd one, in that, Strong’s performance is always nothing short of phenomenal, one just wonders if it’s the wrong movie. Indeed, Strong is nimble, curious, and devoted in the role, never wavering from his message, and there’s never a moment where we don’t believe in him, but every scene with him feels rough-hewn from an entirely different kind of film than the one we find White’s Bruce. It feels as if a Landau biopic is happening simultaneously to this one, and they two never quite mesh well, even when the characters share screen time. It’s a pity, as Strong once again puts in a fine performance, it’s just perhaps one that once again is better than the film in which it lives.
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is a difficult film to recommend, as it lingers so much in Springsteen’s depression, which on one hand, creates a kind of depth of feeling that few biopics can achieve, but it also becomes so oppressive that it leaves one grasping for any sign of light. White captures the soul, if not the swagger, and his supporting cast underline his performance well, one just wishes there was a little more on the outskirts of the deep, oppressive pool we find ourselves in. As it is, it’s one of the emotionally honest biopics we’ll likely see this year, once just wishes it could get a tiny bit of polish to become one of the better ones.
Austin Film Watch 