A One Mann’s Movies review of “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” (2025, 3*, 12A).
I saw “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” at The Royal Festival Hall as a part of the London FIlm Festival, but as it is released in UK cinemas from tomorrow, I’ve done this one as a standard post and not one of my “LFF” ones. (Sorry, I’m still about 9 films behind in writing all the LFF ones up!).
And… the film is fine. A perfectly enjoyable music biopic-lite about a rock star going through mental health issues. But it didn’t really wow me as “Bohemian Rhapsody” or “Rocketman” did. It’s all pretty ‘safe’ and conventional.
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
Bruce Spingsteen (Jeremy Allen White) has just released his ground-breaking album “The River” to great acclaim and his record company love him. But Springsteen is going through mental difficulties, with recurring thoughts about his childhood and his abusive father (Stephen Graham). He retreats to a remote house in Colt’s Neck and starts writing very different music.
Certification:
UK: 12A; US: PG-13. (From the BBFC web site: “Moderate threat, violence, sex, mental health theme, strong language.”)
Talent:
Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, David Krumholtz, Gaby Hoffmann, Matthew Anthony Pellicano Jr..
Directed by: Scott Cooper.
Written by: Scott Cooper. (From the book by Warren Zanes.)
Running Time: 2h 9m.
Summary:
Positives:
- Strong performance from Jeremy Allen White, who really looks, acts and sings like “The Boss”.
- It’s brave of Springsteen to let his mental health issues be portrayed so openly.
Negatives:
- It’s all a bit tame and pedestrian.
Full Review of “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere”:
It’s a typical story of a rock star not dealing with fame very well.
The film really only focuses on a very short period in Springsteen’s career, when he was going through mental health issues. He is painted as an unassuming rock star, always playing down his achievements and his talents. He likes nothing better than to be a supporting guitarist at the “Stone Pony” gigs in the suburbs and getting the applause and brickbats (“You suck Bruce!”) from passing pedestrians and drivers on his way out. It’s outside the club that he meets Faye Romano (Odessa Young), the long-suffering love interest in the story.
We see him turning his back on the fame to go back to his folk roots, writing a very different style of music that would emerge on the album “Nebraska”. These scenes are quite engaging, with Springsteen recording the demo tracks in his front room with the help of his sound recordist and friend Mike (Paul Walter Hauser).
A threatening father.
We get flashbacks to Springsteen’s youth (a good performance by young Matthew Anthony Pellicano Jr.) and his abusive father Douglas (Stephen Graham). I’ve see Stephen Graham talk at the BFI (at the press screening of “Blitz“) and he comes across as a lovely, charming guy. I’m sure he is a perfect Dad to his son and daughter when home. But when he is playing a character like this, he brings a terrifying physicality to the role. He really is a threatening presence in the house, with his mother Adele (Gaby Hoffmann) constantly trying to protect him.
These scenes, although threatening, just hint at the violence that was no doubt meted out: we don’t really see any of that, probably to assure the film its 12A/PG-13 certificates.
One credit I will give is to the hair and make-up team for their aging process on Graham – the scenes of Douglas in the ‘current day’ were, I thought, very impressive.
As the film has the support of Springsteen, and indeed he attended the LFF although I never saw him, I presume the film is a fairly accurate portrayal of the events of his early life and of the period the majority of the film is set in. We are used to seeing the trials of past, long dead legends, like Marilyn Monroe in “Blonde” or Billie Holliday in “The United States vs Billie Holiday“. But it feels quite brave of Springsteen to open the kimono on his past mental health like this in such a public way.
The Bear plays The Boss.
The film really relies on someone to pull off Springsteen’s physicality and Jeremy Allen White delivers on that really well. Apparently, Springsteen saw Allen White on “The Bear” and was struck by how similar his movements were to his own. Allen White also does his own singing on the show and reportedly lost his voice after performing one of his classics: I can only assume this was either “Born to Run” or “Born in the USA”!
Jeremy Strong also delivers a solid turn as Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau. The delight that spreads across his face as Springsteen first belts out “Born in the USA” in the studio is a great moment (even if it then took a while to see the light of day!)
Did I nod off?
One curiosity – and perhaps someone can comment on this. Within the trailer, Jeremy Strong, as his manager Jon Landau, is “telling a little story”, presumably to the studio exec, about a hole in Springsteen’s bedroom floor while he was growing up. It goes on an on and takes up most of the trailer. But I can’t for the life of me remember that monologue actually appearing in the finished film. Did I doze off and it’s in there? Or was it left on the cutting room floor (which makes it a curious choice to dominate the trailer)!?
As an update to this, my good friend and radio film-review star, the Reverend Andy Godfrey, asked the same question and got it answered by one of the film’s producers:
Always nice to get a bit of inside information. I am on a Boss fan Facebook page and posted earlier that a line from the trailer isn’t on the film.
The line in the trailer has John Landau talking about a hole in Bruce’s bedroom floor when he was a boy. But it’s not in the film. One of the film’s producers responded to my post saying that Jeremy Strong ad-libbed that line. It was never on the script. However the advertising team saw it in the dailies and put it in the trailer.
Just in case you were wondering….
Summary Thoughts:
Looking at the current, early, IMDB voting, the film seems to be split between 1* votes and 10* votes with very little in between. It will be interesting to see how that balances out once it goes on general release from tomorrow. I thought it was ‘fine’…. but nothing to shout about. I suspect I will struggle to remember it after a few months.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQXdM3J33No.
Subscribe
Don’t forget, you can subscribe to One Mann’s Movies to receive future reviews by email right here. No salesman will call!
