Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere

When Bruce Springsteen released his bare-bones Nebraska album in 1982, his conditions to Columbia Records included “no singles, no tour, no press.” Would that he had included “no biopics,” which might have spared us Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, a heavy-handed saga burdened with the dogged earnestness that rarely surfaces in the musician’s work but is the cornerstone of the cinematic output of writer-director Scott Cooper (Out of the Furnace, Hostiles, The Pale Blue Eye).

It’s a well-intended enough chronicle of the Boss at a career crossroads, having just scored his first Top 10 hit with “Hungry Heart” but grappling with loneliness, depression, and trauma from his abusive father; those elements could certainly add up to dramatic storytelling, but Cooper’s self-conscious faux gravitas rears its head all too often. And while he’s clearly pouring himself into the role, Jeremy Allan White never quite accomplishes that alchemy in which one famous person disappears into another famous person over the course of a film; many of the specifics of Springsteen’s speaking and singing voice emerge in White’s performance, but I never forgot I was watching one icon trying to transform himself into another one.

We open with the end of Springsteen’s tour for The River, and it’s not long before Bruce starts feeling restless in his rental house in Colts Neck, New Jersey. His manager-confidant Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) reminds him that he’s always at odds and ends after finishing a tour, and while the singer distracts himself with a new sportscar and a possible relationship with single mom Faye (Odessa Young, Shirley), it’s not until he catches Terrence Malick’s Badlands on TV that he’s inspired to start writing again. Researching that film’s subject, murderer Charles Starkweather, he begins crafting the new album.

Only it’s two new albums, really, as the track list includes titles like “Darlington County” and “I’m on Fire,” which would surface on Springsteen’s smash follow-up Born in the U.S.A. two years later. With the help of engineer Mike Batlan (Paul Walter Hauser), Springsteen records Nebraska on a first-generation four-track system that allows him to lay down a rudimentary version of the songs onto a standard cassette in the Colts Neck house. In the studio, Springsteen and the E Street Band thrill everyone with “Born in the U.S.A.,” but the singer defies the expectation of those around him by instead wanting to release the Colts Neck sessions as they are, without a band or even studio sweetening. (The scenes in which producer Chuck Plotkin, played by Marc Maron, tries to turn a home-recorded cassette tape into a commercially-releasable album provide the film’s lightest moments, as well as a fascinating look at process.)

Cooper never quite lands on a story here, or rather, he lands on too many of them: it’s about the recording of a legendary album, it’s about a relationship that never quite takes off, it’s about a man struggling with the memories of his volatile alcoholic father (Stephen Graham) and long-suffering mother (Gaby Hoffman), but none of these threads bolster each other or land anywhere dramatic or insightful. The film’s arc of Bruce’s depression culminates in a mini-breakdown, after which Landau tells him to go to therapy. And that’s pretty much it.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere gets the craft right, from the spot-on pre-MTV clothes and hairstyles to cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi (Spotlight) shooting the childhood flashbacks in a high-contrast black-and-white that calls to mind the Depression-era photography of Margaret Bourke-White. Legendary casting director Francine Maisler has assembled a notable cadre of character actors, from venerable scene-stealers like Strong (whose performance is so eccentric that it must be a pitch-perfect recreation of the real Jon Landau) and Hauser to the great Jane Houdyshell, who pops in for a scene or two as Faye’s boss.

It’s always applause-worthy when a biopic focuses on a few key years rather than try to tackle the span of a notable life, but Cooper never fully captures the mental anguish or the artistic glory tied up in Nebraska’s creation. It’s as spare as the album it chronicles, but never as subtle or satisfying.

Director: Scott Cooper
Screenwriter: Scott Cooper, based on the book by Warren Zanes
Cast: Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, David Krumholtz, Gaby Hoffman, Harrison Sloan Gilbertson, Grace Gummer, Marc Maron, Matthew Pellicano Jr.
Producers: Scott Cooper, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Eric Robinson, Scott Stuber
Executive producers: Tracey Landon, Jon F. Vein, Warren Zanes
Cinematographer: Masanobu Takayanagi
Production design: Stefania Cella
Editing: Pamela Martin
Music: Jeremiah Fraites
Sound design: David Giammarco, supervising sound editor / re-recording mixer
Production companies: 20th Century Studios, Gotham Group, Night Exterior, Bluegrass 7
In English
120 minutes