On Saturday night, I went to the Kendall Square Cinema to take in a screening of Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere starring Jeremy Allen White as The Boss.
I remember seeing White in the 2023 film The Iron Claw in which he portrayed the late professional wrestler, Kerry Von Erich. Being able to portray both Kerry Von Erich and Bruce Springsteen takes a certain amount of range.
While Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is nowhere nearly as depressing as The Iron Claw, the film is bleak and does address Springsteen's history of depression. It is the subtext of Springsteen's creation of his 1982 album Nebraska which was a significant left turn from his preceding album The River which was released in 1980. Springsteen would record Nebraska on a four-track recorder at a rented house in New Jersey. While these sessions would yield many of the songs which would eventually appear on his most commercially successful album Born in the U.S.A., Springsteen felt the need to shelf those songs and concentrate on the sparse and stripped-back acoustic folk songs which would comprise Nebraska.
Whereas most musical biopics focus on a musician's launch to stardom as was the case with A Complete Unknown starring Timothee Chalamet which documented the rise of Bob Dylan, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere focuses on a Springsteen who is an established musical artist but is subject to the pressures of building on his commercial success. It should be noted that the film's source material is derived from the book Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska written by Warren Haynes.
The best part of the film is the relationship between Springsteen and his manager Jon Landau (played by Jeremy Strong). While Springsteen and Landau are opposites in temperament, Landau makes it his mission to represent Springsteen's vision on record even if it isn't his own. As Landau tells a Columbia Records executive, "In this office, we support Bruce Springsteen." Yet Landau knows Springsteen needs more help than he can give him where it concerns his depression and sees to it that his friend gets the help he needs.
The two Jeremys portray Springsteen and Landau as something more than brothers. In one scene, Springsteen tells Landau that he is "bringing the real." To which Landau retorts, "If you bring the real then I will deal with the noise." This is also well exemplified during a scene during the latter portion of a film when Springsteen is about to depart New Jersey for California when Landau plays Springsteen "Last Mile of the Way" by Sam Cooke. The two listen to the song sitting down next to each other bonded by an unbreakable yet unspoken friendship.
What felt less authentic was Australian actress Odessa Young's portrayal of Faye Romano, Springsteen's love interest. I got the sense that Faye Romano was something of a composite character and my suspicions turned out to be correct. While the events which transpired between Springsteen and Romano in the film may have based on real life events, that part of the film felt contrived and less than authentic.
I must admit I did not recognize Gaby Hoffmann in her portrayal of Springsteen's mother, Adele. While I know Hoffmann has maintained her acting career as an adult with her appearances in TV shows like Girls and Transparent, when I think of her, I cannot help but think of her work as a child actress in Field of Dreams and Uncle Buck.
While Nebraska might have represented a departure for Bruce Springsteen, his reputation was such that it was going to be a commercially successful album even without any singles, tour or promotion. The same, however, probably would not have held true for a lesser-known musician. Nevertheless, Nebraska remains a significant focal point of Bruce Springsteen's discography as it represented both a professional and personal crossroad for him from which he would find deliverance.
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