Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere

Quick take: Mopey Carmy from The Bear is a plausible stand-in for what brooding Bruce was going through while making Nebraska.

I am suspicious of music biopics—they typically suck. The 2005 film Walk the Line about Johnny Cash was a box-office success (and I liked it), grossing over $186 million and costing a mere $28 million. The big box-office success was 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody about Queen’s Freddie Mercury, which nearly earned a billion dollars on a $50 million budget. I hated it, but then I never really got Queen, even after seeing them live back in the day. Queen hits were novelty records. Bohemian Rhapsody was such a success that studios keep betting that lightning will hit twice. 2024’s A Complete Unknown (about the start of Dylan’s career) did well, doubling its investment.

I am a huge Dylan fan, and I liked A Complete Unknown. I was worried the movie would pull it off, but it did: it captured Dylan’s magic. The best part of that movie for me is that it helped my wife to understand my obsession with Dylan.

I am also a Bruce Springsteen fan, just not as obsessively as Dylan. I was worried about Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere even more than usual for a biopic, since the actor playing Springsteen is Jeremy Allen White, Carmy from the TV series The Bear—a role he may never recover from. White has such distinct facial features that I assumed it would be impossible for him to impersonate anyone. But I had hopes for the movie because I liked the movie’s premise: the making of Springsteen’s Nebraska. Springsteen’s Nebraska is one of the top pop star gambles of all time, and it paid off handsomely for Springsteen.

Nebraska is a legendary album. Springsteen had been on a nice upward trajectory. His previous album, The River, had been a critical and commercial success (and his first pop hit: “Hungry Heart”). However, Bruce wasn’t feeling it. His depression had caught up with him, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to become a pop star. Springsteen was a rarity: he was on a roll and had new hit songs in his back pocket that were sure things, like “Born In The U.S.A.” He could choose to become the biggest rock star of his generation if he wanted to be. Springsteen was having an existential crisis: he wasn’t sure he wanted to claim his ticket to the big time.

He followed his muse and left the hits in the can, instead releasing an album, Nebraska, an emotionally dark, lo-fi collection of original folk songs recorded as bedroom demos, as his follow-up to The River. It somehow worked (for obsessive fans at least) and became a palate cleanser for the biggest album of his career: Born In The U.S.A. Over time, Springsteen’s reluctance to go for the brass ring has given him Dylanesque credibility. It also sparked desire among his fans for Electric Nebraska, as it was common fan knowledge that Springsteen had recorded the Nebraska songs with the E Street Band while they were working through what would become  Born In The U.S.A. Springsteen is now drafting off the movie by finally releasing Electric Nebraska as part of the Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition box (more about that in a future post).

The Nebraska story is a good idea for a biopic if you want to appeal to a niche audience. Mopey Carmy from The Bear is a plausible stand-in for what brooding Bruce was going through while making Nebraska. Thankfully, the movie makers mostly avoided White impersonating the Born In The U.S.A. version of The Boss (when they do it fails), but mopey Carmy playing mopey Bruce works.

However, this will probably not work for the general public. I went with my wife, who is a good proxy for the general public. She knows the hits and has seen the E Street circus live. She is a fan of sexy Born In The U.S.A. Boss and not existential angst, Bruce. She was disappointed in Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. I assume her point of view is normal, and my appreciation is a minority one.

The movie captured my understanding of the Nebraska gamble, which wasn’t a gamble; Bruce couldn’t help himself. I didn’t learn anything beyond what I already knew as a Springsteen fan. But I did enjoy seeing the story on the big screen. I am now ready to sink my teeth into Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition box.

White is as effective at impersonating Nebraska Bruce’s voice and personality as Timothée Chalamet was at impersonating Dylan, that is a B+. There was an early scene in the movie where White was recreating a show performance from The River, and he can’t pull off Epic Bruce – but who could? But brooding bedroom Bruce, White pulls that off.

Overall, I was satisfied with the movie, but I give it a qualified recommendation—this is for Boss obsessives only. I also assume that historical literalists will struggle with artistic licence, for example, the composite character, Bruce’s love interest Faye Romano.

P.S. We saw the movie at a Dolby Cinema at AMC. Per AMC:

Dolby Cinema unlocks the emotional impact of every film, allowing you to see the subtle details and ultravivid colors of Dolby Vision© and hear the immersive sound of Dolby Atmos© while seated in cutting-edge, reservable, spacious recliners. This unmatched combination is so lifelike – you’ll forget you’re at the movies.

My take:

• It looked great
• Atmos was too loud and too harsh; the vibrating bass was a distraction; amazingly, the dialogue is hard to hear; in summary, overrated
• The seats are not that comfortable
• I never forgot I was in a movie theater