It’s interesting to understand Scott Cooper’s approach to this project, yet another biopic about a music celebrity. Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere differs in its structure from biopics about Bob Dylan or Robbie Williams (to name the most recent), which introduced the subjects from their very beginnings. Dylan appeared on screen upon arriving in New York City as a stranger in a linear and well-structured film, while Williams’s story unfolded from the very birth of the main character and the peculiarity of using a monkey to portray him, along with countless other highly original creative choices.
SDMFN is based on Warren Zane’s book Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska and doesn’t attempt to be a full-fledged biopic of The Boss (who, in turn, authorized this production) but rather a portrayal of a fragment of his life. Specifically, between 1981 and 1982, the period when Springsteen returned to New Jersey after the tour following the success of his album The River. It was during this time that Jon Landau (played by Jeremy Strong), a critic for Rolling Stone, became his producer and a major artistic influence, a kind of manager who understood the singer’s struggles and stood firm against all the demands of executives at Columbia Records, starting with Al Teller (David Krumholtz).
The central conflict is that Springsteen was in a period described as “mentally fragile,” “tortured,” and markedly unable to connect with others, such as Faye, a waitress (Ordesa Young), who embodies the film’s truncated emotional core.
Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) delivers a very accomplished and convincing performance as Springsteen, one that doesn’t expect much in the way of spectacle beyond the occasional musical number, such as his rendition of the powerful “Born in the USA”—a way to please fans, since the film takes a different, darker path, aiming to demonstrate how a musician’s creative process unfolds. In this particular case, it’s the recording of samples from his bedroom, under the influence of Terrence Malick’s Badlands, on TV, and experiencing a profound depression.
The demos materialized in Nebraska, his album recorded on four-track cassette and transferred to a vinyl master. This reverse process, resulting in lower quality, required isolating constituent materials from the original recording and subjecting them to a “cleaning” process. The recording and post-production quality wouldn’t be the same as if it had been recorded in a studio, but that was The Boss’s intention, and Landau’s intervention, with a clear statement that largely defines the film, was crucial: “There will be no singles, no tours, no interviews: the album will speak for itself.”
The signs of Bruce’s depression are interspersed through black-and-white flashbacks, a story of domestic violence and detachment. His father, Douglas (Stephen Graham, from Teenagers), can be compared in some ways to Williams’s father in Better Man, not because of his competitiveness with young Bruce (Matthew Anthony Pellicano Jr.) but because of his alcoholism, which prevents him from having any kind of relationship other than accompanying him to see Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter on several occasions; a feature film starring Robert Mitchum, whose performance inspired Springsteen for the lyrics of several of his songs.
Cooper, who had already brought a musician’s life to the screen in Crazy Heart, achieves with Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere a very personal and respectful portrayal of The Boss. It doesn’t dwell on the revelry of success or try to enhance the action with the artist’s most famous songs. Focusing the film on just one period of the singer’s life is a wise and welcome decision.
(Estados Unidos, 2025)
Guion y dirección: Scott Cooper. Elenco: Jeremy Allen White, Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Paul Walter Hauser, Jeremy Strong, Gaby Hoffman. Producción: Scott Cooper, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Eric Robinson, Scott Stuber. Duración: 120 minutos.
Jose Luis De Lorenzo
También te puede interesar…
BUSCADOR
ÚLTIMAS ENTRADAS
