Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere

Scott Cooper began his illustrious career as an indie film director with Crazy Heart, an adaptation of a country-music novel that earned Jeff Bridges his first Oscar. He then enjoyed a successful foray into dark drama with films like Out of the Furnace, Black Mass, and Hostiles. He even ventured into horror with Antlers. In Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, Cooper takes his most ambitious swing yet, returning to the world of the singer-songwriter with one of the most challenging music biopics imaginable: The Boss.

Deliver Me from Nowhere is an examination of Springsteen's mythic recording of Nebraska, a dark collection of introspective songs that marked an enormous departure from and unthinkable risk to his burgeoning stardom. By 1975's  Born to Run tour, Bruce and his band had solidified their reputation as one of the best live rock bands of all time. In 1980, he scored his first top 10 single with Hungry Heart. The execs at Columbia were itching to see him follow up with something even more commercially successful.

Instead, the artist turned over a cassette tape of somber folk songs he had crudely laid down on a four-track recorder. It was the furthest thing from commercially appealing. The title track was inspired after Springsteen learned of Charles Starkweather, a mass murderer who went on a killing spree across the Midwest two decades earlier. While the label was far more interested in other tracks he was working on that would ultimately become the Born in the USA album that would launch Springsteen into the stratosphere, the artist held firm on releasing Nebraska as something of an arthouse record. It would go on to earn critical acclaim, reaching number three on the album charts despite no singles or accompanying tour.

Cooper took a similar approach to the film as James Mangold recently did with his Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. By focusing on a narrow but pivotal slice of a prolific artist's career, he avoids the harried, check-the-boxes formula that has marred so many other efforts in the genre. Like A Complete Unknown, Deliver Me from Nowhere also captures the artist on the verge of being propelled into the stratosphere of fame and acclaim, that last moment before the emerging star loses too much of the normalcy of day-to-day life to feel human and relatable.

Another similarity between the films is that they both feature a star who has worked so steadily as to verge on overexposure, attempting the already-nearly-impossible task of making audiences believe they are portraying someone who's been on their screens for decades. At first, it's no easier to believe that Jeremy Allen White is Springsteen than it was to buy Timothée Chalamet as Dylan. However, like Chalamet, White arms himself in a deft adaptation of his character’s many idiosyncracies and, although it likewise takes the better part of the first act to buy in fully, he gets there in what is ultimately a very strong performance. 

White is backed by several strong supporting performances, including one by Jeremy Strong (Succession, The Apprentice), who nails the Boss’s longtime manager, Jon Landau. Paul Walter Hauser (Richard Jewel, I, Tonya) is his usual delightful self as Springsteen’s guitar tech, who helps him record Nebraska. Odessa Young gives a good performance as Faye, his love interest at the time, although her character is a bit of a walking cliche. Gaby Hoffmann is rock solid as Springsteen’s mother, and British actor Stephen Graham (Snatch, Adolescence) steals nearly every scene he’s in as Springsteen’s stoic, alcoholic, and sometimes violent father. 

Deliver Me from Nowhere does an outstanding job avoiding the many landmines that can plague such a rock biopic, delivering a serious, grounded work of art that is not dissimilar to its subject. I’ve been a fan of Bruce since I began listening to 99.3 WWMR—a Philly station credited with having launched his career—in third grade. I have all his albums and have seen him in concert many times. I would see myself as both the target audience and among those most likely to be offended by something corny or pretentious, and I enjoyed the film immensely, as I would expect most serious and casual fans to. I also think there is more than enough quality acting and storytelling to satisfy non-fans as well. 

Grade: B+