Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere review – monotony unfitting of its subject

We’ve had a seemingly endless run of tedious music biopics of late that suck the living daylights out of otherwise scintillating subjects. Timothée Chalamet’s monotonous read on Bob Dylan in Walk the Line director James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown is a prime example. Though Monica Barbaro deserves a spin-off as Joan Baez, easily stealing the show from the Dune lead.

For every Straight Outta Compton, The Doors or Amadeus, there’s a plethora of Back to Black abominations, doing Amy Winehouse so dirty. The least said about Rami Malek and his fake teeth’s crimes against Freddie Mercury, the better, though I had more time for Taron Egerton’s Elton John in Rocketman.

Springsteen: a glimmer of hope

I went into an Adelaide Film Festival screening of Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere with a foolish glimmer of hope that maybe, just maaaybe a biopic on the Boss could buck the curse of unending boredom. I was wrong, dear reader.

Adapted from the non-fiction book of the same name by musician and author Warren Zanes, it’s co-written by director Scott Cooper. The latter trod not entirely dissimilar material with the Jeff Bridges-led country music faff Crazy Heart, which at least benefited from a seasoned performer at the top of his game.

Springsteen: Jeremy Allen White

I don’t think you have to look like a real person you are playing. In fact, I hate the prosthetic extremes filmmakers resort to rather than rely on, you know, their actors acting. But Jeremy Allen White White more than looks nothing like Springsteen. He also doesn’t sound like him or even convincingly carry himself as the New Jersey-born megastar’s swagger. There’s just no losing yourself in a poorly drawn illusion.

Biopics often get bogged down in a Wikipedia-like approach: this happened and then this and this. So it’s a credit to Cooper and Zanes that they at least try to narrow in on an impactful moment in Springsteen’s life.

The problem is, the star’s decision to open his heart on acoustic album Nebraska, though not to tour or talk about it, is more interesting on paper than on screen. He was already pretty successful, and about to be even more so. It’s hardly dynamic material.

There are films that have made writing scintillating on screen, like John Malkovich’s flamboyant cad Valmont penning a letter to his lover on the back of a sex worker in literary adaptation Dangerous Liaisons, or Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s Capote at work on In Cold Blood. It’s fair to say that watching White scribbling lyrics and striking through titles won’t make the shortlist.

Some make watching sound recording pop. Beach Boys biopic Love & Mercy isn’t magnificent, but zings when Paul Dano’s Brian Wilson and the band geek out on Pet Sounds. Scenes of Springsteen recording Born in the USA (ultimately held back for a later album) with a band the film never bothers to flesh out don’t.

In fact, when White’s Springsteen niggles that the four-track demo he recorded at home sounds way better, he comes across as childish rather than creatively focused.

Springsteen’s openness about his battles with depression should make for meatier stuff. But it’s mostly relegated to a panic attack, with Cooper’s film risibly cutting from a therapy session before the singer-songwriter speaks a word.

Springsteen: exploring trauma

That trauma spirals from an abusive childhood under the drunken tyranny of his father, Douglas. Stephen Graham, who did such good work on Adolescence and Boiling Point, is short-changed here through no fault of his own.

Lacklustre black-and-white flashbacks aren’t as appealing as cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi’s in-story contemporary scenes. They’re also clumsily introduced by having White stare into the middle distance. Often outside the family home, just in case you missed the import. And the overstuffed suit he’s forced to don later as a weightier man is unfortunate. Again, can we just act?

Similarly brilliant, Gaby Hoffman is also squandered in a thankless turn as Springsteen’s mum, Adele. These scenes can’t match up to her smaller, still, but much more impactful moment in Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind.

Jeremy Strong’s particular eccentricities as an actor fall flat here in the role of supportive music producer Jon Landau, saddled with too much exposition dumping to get the less familiar up to speed, or excruciating clunkers like ‘He’s going to repair the world’.

Australian star Odessa Young is easily the most impressive cast member, managing to make scant scraps shine through her careworn charm as a single mum who falls for the Boss while watching him rock out at the Stone Pony. Alas, in what is an all too common trope in lazy music bios, the character is entirely made up, a sort of generic anything will do love interest that only comes alive in Young’s capable hands.

More mediocre than morbidly bad, a la Bohemian Rhapsody, this deeply disappointing Springsteen biopic feels like it’s on a road to nowhere.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is in cinemas from 23 October 2025.

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