As I was leaving the theater one of the old ladies (I was the youngest person in the theater by 30 years easily) said to her friend “my story is more interesting than that.” And she’s probably right.
Like many Men of a Certain Age, Springsteen means a lot to me. I saw him at MetLife Stadium on The River Redux Tour in 2017 and it was one of the most incredible live experiences I’ve ever had. You do not know live music until you’ve seen Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band in New Jersey in a jam packed stadium. He played for four+ hours, played maybe five hits, and everyone knew every word to every song. Just unreal.
Springsteen is a magical person. His memoir is one of, if not THE best, ever written (and I’ve read a lot of them). He writes beautifully and effortlessly, with an easy charm as if you’re sitting on a barstool catching up with an old friend.
This movie has none of that. Springsteen is more angsty teen than anything else. Jeremy Allen White does nothing but glower. Jeremy Allen White does nothing but glower in everything he does. “Need a guy to be sad? Call JAW!” But you never actually feel Springsteen’s depression. There’s a scene late in the movie where Bruce has a breakdown at a county fair in Texas. The scene is ripped almost verbatim out of his memoir. In the memoir, Bruce writes honestly and vividly of how the depression overwhelms like a cloud out of nowhere. I have gone through that exact thing and Bruce describes the feeling perfectly. I think of it often. In Deliver Me From Nowhere, we’ve watched The Boss be sad for 90 minutes already and then the movie goes “ok, now he’s REALLY sad!”, but Allen’s performance doesn’t change at all so it ultimately all feels the same, which is to say it means nothing.
Outside of the depression, the movie is a very paint-by-numbers music biopic, riddled with pantomime musical numbers and cliched dialogue. People say “hey I know you!” and he responds with “that makes one of us.” Springsteen literally writes in his notebook “double album?” the implication I guess being he’s SO creative, even though the album he JUST MADE that opens the movie, The River, is a double album! It’s all very silly, due in large part to the fact that Springsteen’s persona as a sensitive fake blue collar tough guy is very silly.
The musical performances are too few and far between and not very good. The big Born to Run sequence from the trailers happens in the first five minutes. A lot has been made of how similar JAW’s voice sounds to Bruce’s, and he does handle that well. But what he clearly did NOT study was how to play guitar, because every time we see him play guitar his hands barely move. This movie invites comparisons to A Complete Unknown from last year, which is not fair to A Complete Unknown, a far more compelling film, due in no small part to the sheer commitment of the musical numbers. There are also a lot more of them in A Complete Unknown. It’s actually quite surprising watching Deliver Me From Nowhere and see how few there are given how much the trailers hyped it up. JAW’s performance is competent but can’t hold a candle to Chalamet. Timmy spent 6 years completely immersing himself in Dylan, learning guitar, learning harmonica. White feels like he practiced pantomime in the car when he had time. He also did something I hate which is he copied a lot of Bruce’s posture and mannerisms as a way to be “method” and disappear into the character or whatever, but it just feels so phony and try hard. It feels like JAW dressed up as Bruce for Halloween. He does rock a phenomenal head of hair though.
This is not Jeremy Strong’s best work. Paul Walter Hauser is his delightful self and his incredible 2025 continues unabated. Weirdly, the person really making the most of their screen time is Marc Maron, who has maybe two lines of dialogue, but every time he’s on screen everything comes to life.
Then there’s the “love interest” Faye, a composite character of several women in Springsteen’s life before his first marriage, but she’s really just a sex object with no agency of her own. This is the kind of character you’d expect to see in a movie in 1995, not 2025. The actor who plays her is wonderful though, I didn’t know her before.
Anyway, this movie is not good. You’ve seen it before and done better. I knew from the trailer it wasn’t going to be good but I went out of loyalty to The Boss. What’s frustrating is Bruce IS a compelling figure and his life IS interesting enough for a movie. Just watch his Broadway show on Netflix! Or read his memoir! But this ain’t it. He deserves better and so do his fans. For years I’ve had an idea for a biopic about Bob Seger that I think would be compelling. Deliver Me From Nowhere just further convinces me it would be, because it’s better than this.
As I was leaving the theater one of the old ladies (I was the youngest person in the theater by 30 years easily) said to her friend “my story is more interesting than that.” And she’s probably right.
Like many Men of a Certain Age, Springsteen means a lot to me. I saw him at MetLife Stadium on The River Redux Tour in 2017 and it was one of the most incredible live experiences I’ve ever had. You do not know live music until you’ve seen Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band in New Jersey in a jam packed stadium. He played for four+ hours, played maybe five hits, and everyone knew every word to every song. Just unreal.
Springsteen is a magical person. His memoir is one of, if not THE best, ever written (and I’ve read a lot of them). He writes beautifully and effortlessly, with an easy charm as if you’re sitting on a barstool catching up with an old friend.
This movie has none of that. Springsteen is more angsty teen than anything else. Jeremy Allen White does nothing but glower. Jeremy Allen White does nothing but glower in everything he does. “Need a guy to be sad? Call JAW!” But you never actually feel Springsteen’s depression. There’s a scene late in the movie where Bruce has a breakdown at a county fair in Texas. The scene is ripped almost verbatim out of his memoir. In the memoir, Bruce writes honestly and vividly of how the depression overwhelms like a cloud out of nowhere. I have gone through that exact thing and Bruce describes the feeling perfectly. I think of it often. In Deliver Me From Nowhere, we’ve watched The Boss be sad for 90 minutes already and then the movie goes “ok, now he’s REALLY sad!”, but Allen’s performance doesn’t change at all so it ultimately all feels the same, which is to say it means nothing.
Outside of the depression, the movie is a very paint-by-numbers music biopic, riddled with pantomime musical numbers and cliched dialogue. People say “hey I know you!” and he responds with “that makes one of us.” Springsteen literally writes in his notebook “double album?” the implication I guess being he’s SO creative, even though the album he JUST MADE that opens the movie, The River, is a double album! It’s all very silly, due in large part to the fact that Springsteen’s persona as a sensitive fake blue collar tough guy is very silly.
The musical performances are too few and far between and not very good. The big Born to Run sequence from the trailers happens in the first five minutes. A lot has been made of how similar JAW’s voice sounds to Bruce’s, and he does handle that well. But what he clearly did NOT study was how to play guitar, because every time we see him play guitar his hands barely move. This movie invites comparisons to A Complete Unknown from last year, which is not fair to A Complete Unknown, a far more compelling film, due in no small part to the sheer commitment of the musical numbers. There are also a lot more of them in A Complete Unknown. It’s actually quite surprising watching Deliver Me From Nowhere and see how few there are given how much the trailers hyped it up. JAW’s performance is competent but can’t hold a candle to Chalamet. Timmy spent 6 years completely immersing himself in Dylan, learning guitar, learning harmonica. White feels like he practiced pantomime in the car when he had time. He also did something I hate which is he copied a lot of Bruce’s posture and mannerisms as a way to be “method” and disappear into the character or whatever, but it just feels so phony and try hard. It feels like JAW dressed up as Bruce for Halloween. He does rock a phenomenal head of hair though.
This is not Jeremy Strong’s best work. Paul Walter Hauser is his delightful self and his incredible 2025 continues unabated. Weirdly, the person really making the most of their screen time is Marc Maron, who has maybe two lines of dialogue, but every time he’s on screen everything comes to life.
Then there’s the “love interest” Faye, a composite character of several women in Springsteen’s life before his first marriage, but she’s really just a sex object with no agency of her own. This is the kind of character you’d expect to see in a movie in 1995, not 2025. The actor who plays her is wonderful though, I didn’t know her before.
Anyway, this movie is not good. You’ve seen it before and done better. I knew from the trailer it wasn’t going to be good but I went out of loyalty to The Boss. What’s frustrating is Bruce IS a compelling figure and his life IS interesting enough for a movie. Just watch his Broadway show on Netflix! Or read his memoir! But this ain’t it. He deserves better and so do his fans. For years I’ve had an idea for a biopic about Bob Seger that I think would be compelling. Deliver Me From Nowhere just further convinces me it would be, because it’s better than this.
4
