Director: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Odessa Young
Certificate: 12A
Run Time: 119 mins

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is a biographical musical drama about Bruce Springsteen’s personal and professional struggles during the conception of his 1982 album Nebraska. The film’s directed by Scott Cooper, a filmmaker whose work I greatly admire. Cooper’s first and arguably most critically acclaimed film is Crazy Heart, another musical drama, so it’s interesting to see him return back to the genre that he found the most success in. While I really liked Crazy Heart, it was his next run of films I particularly resonated with – Out of the Furnace (his best and most criminally underrated), Black Mass and Hostiles. His more recent films – Antlers and The Pale Blue Eye – were both good, but not on a par with his earlier work. Is Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere Cooper back on top form?

Not quite. This is an engaging and ambitious biopic with an uncommonly moody tone, but it’s a little muddled in its execution. It’s commendable that Cooper has decided to make a film about the darkest part of Springsteen’s career, about someone who faces their inner demons rather than being a traditional, happy-go-lucky rock biopic. I also liked how the film analyses the creation of art and how an artist has to fight for their vision. It’s also impeccably shot by Cooper’s usual cinematographer, Masanobu Takayanagi – a shot of a car travelling through a desert landscape towards the film’s end is particularly stunning, as are the black-and-white flashbacks of Springsteen’s childhood, giving the film a nightmarish quality. But Springsteen’s breakdown in the third act feels a little unearned and rushed – although Cooper’s script is decent, he writes the character thinly in this respect.

Jeremy Allen White makes for a fantastic Springsteen, deftly capturing the mannerisms. When we first meet him on stage performing ‘Born to Run’, there isn’t a jukebox quality about White at all like there can be with some biopics – his performance feels very real. Jeremy Strong is also great as Jon Landau, Springsteen’s manager and it’s interesting to see him in a different role, where his intensity is because he supports the singer through thick and thin rather than having an ulterior motive. Odessa Young is another highlight as Faye Romano, Springsteen’s love interest and there’s a fun performance from Paul Walter Hauser as Springsteen’s recording engineer.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is an ambitious biopic in that Cooper has made a gloomy film that’s more interested in the minutiae and how an artist brings their work to life while battling their inner demons. But it lacks the lightning in a bottle energy that other music biopics such as A Complete Unknown earlier this year, or even Cooper’s own Crazy Heart. While this is yet another film where Cooper isn’t at the top of his game, I admire the director’s ambition even if it’s rather uneven.

It’s quite cineliterate with films like Badlands and Night of the Hunter.

Paul Walter Hauser is clearly having fun and Odessa Young is a highlight as Faye Romano, Bruce’s love interest.