(Scott Cooper, USA, 2025, 119 minutes)
Bruce Springsteen has been a part of my life for over 50 years.
So I'm not a neutral observer when it comes to Deliver Me from Nowhere, the musician's first officially-sanctioned biopic (and an adaptation of Del Fuego-turned-music scholar Warren Zanes' book, The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska). Fortunately, for him, for me, for anyone who considers themselves a fan–even for the merely curious: it's very good.
*****
Prior to 1980's The River, I don't remember hearing Springsteen on the radio. I'm sure many listeners did, because Columbia released singles that hit the Hot 100, but my primary radio source while growing up in Alaska was a Top 40 station (ironically, I would become a late-night DJ after college at KWHL, an AOR station founded in 1982). I was also addicted to countdown programs, like the Casey Kasem-hosted American Top 40 and the show Solid Gold, but Springsteen, in the 1970s, was mostly perceived as an album guy.
Granted, he released more than two dozen singles over the course of the decade, so some may have a different recollection, not least when one of those songs was his signature number, "Born to Run," except the single peaked at #23, which seems inconceivable from today's perspective. (Consequently, I may have heard the song as a grade schooler, but it made no impact at the time.)
Things would change in the early-1980s, by which time Springsteen was already a bonafide star. It's just that he became stratospheric and inescapable, not only on radio, but on the nascent MTV.
In the 1970s, he was the subject of countless magazine and television profiles, so I knew full well who he was, but living in Anchorage, prior to the construction of the George M. Sullivan Arena, means I never got the chance to see one of his famous give-the-people-their-hard-earned-money's-worth live shows. My Bay Area-based dad, on the other hand, did get that chance.
And that's where I'm going with all of this, because it was my dad, really, who introduced me to Springsteen's music. I was aware of the guy before Dad tuned in, but I hadn't heard much. My parents were divorced, so I don't know when it started, but when Dad liked a record, really liked a record, he would play it over and over again (a trait I inherited). This could have been irritating if I didn't share his taste to some extent, but I did; my parents' respective record collections combined with my incessant radio listening, TV watching, and music magazine reading–yes, I was the kid who slept with a transistor radio under their pillow–helped to shape my musical taste.
Dad became obsessed with Born to Run, and so I heard it often when I came to visit.
I have this vague recollection of other records, including bootlegs, and tales of epic Oakland shows, but it all comes back to Born to Run. I wouldn't say I became a fan then and there, but I liked what I heard. Left to my own devices, The River was the album that made me a fan.
I wasn’t always close to my dad. He was a bright, funny guy with stories for days, but he was also a drinker and a smoker who filed bankruptcy twice and likely died from his habits--both his heart and lungs were shot when he suffered a fatal heart attack in 2010.
I don't mean to sound judgmental; he didn't have an easy childhood, and Vietnam fucked him up, to the extent that he never talked about it, and I didn't even find out he served "in country" until after his death; I only knew about his less-eventful time with the Air Force in Hawaii. I have no idea if "Born in the U.S.A." meant anything to him, but I'd like to think it did.
Like many an Irishman–his parents were the immigrants, but Dad grew up in a strict Catholic household in Queens–he was a raconteur, but he wasn't wild about reliving his past, and nor did he have any interest in therapy, so I only learned about some of his more painful experiences in bits and pieces.
The result was a father somewhat akin to the one Springsteen grew up with (the part-Irish musician also grew up in a devout Catholic household; like my dad, he would leave the religion behind as soon as he could). If his reliably dependable mother inspired him, his father, who had fought in the pivotal Battle of the Bulge during World War II, was a different story.
Right: Bruce with Douglas and Virginia "Ginny" Springsteen
The elder Springsteen drank and smoked and appears to have loved his family, but didn't always know how to show it. He scared his wife and children when he got drunk--Springsteen had two younger sisters--and sometimes got physical.
My dad wasn't that bad. He never hit me or my mom, but he scared the shit out of me when he was angry–he yelled, threw breakable objects, and said awful things–so much so that I stopped talking to him for a brief period in the 1990s. I told him we were through unless he got help.
He later offered an apology filled with so much shame and regret that we were able to start over. We were never again as close as when I was a kid, but we became closer than we had been, and we were in a good place when he passed.
I didn't mean to make this about me or my dad, but those are the thoughts and feelings the film brought up, because it's more affecting in the father-son moments than in the artist-manager moments, which defied my expectations based on everything I had read beforehand.
I regret that I missed the New York Film Festival premiere with Springsteen in attendance–not least when he burst out in song–but writer/director Scott Cooper and star Jeremy Allen White were on hand at the next day's screening, and it was great to see it on a huge screen with a big, enthusiastic audience.
Granted, the line to get in to Alice Tully Hall was considerable, but I arrived early, much as I did when Springsteen made a stop at Seattle's Elliot Bay Bookstore in 2016 for a meet and greet around his memoir, shockingly titled Born to Run (I jest; of course it’s called Born to Run).
That line went on forever, but no one seemed to mind. I'm grateful I got to share that once-in-a-lifetime experience with Michelle Byrd and our late friend Bill Kennedy.
To my mind, it isn't surprising that Succession's Jeremy Strong was cast as Jon Landau, a Rolling Stone writer who became Springsteen's manager in 1974, but White and Stephen Graham weren't the most obvious choices for their respective roles, setting aside White's bankability in the wake of Emmy-winning series The Bear–let alone a Calvin Klein underwear campaign–but they're both up to the task; if anything Strong's take on Landau as a level-headed, if fiercely loyal advocate makes him less engaging, though he gets the best line, which I won't share here (for my money, Roy Cohn in The Apprentice provided a richer opportunity for his brand of theatrics).
Cooper opens with Springsteen as a 10-year-old living with his father and mother (Gaby Hoffman, also very good) in Freehold, New Jersey. He distinguishes past from present by shifting back and forth from black and white to color. There's nothing innovative about this approach, though Masanobu Takayanagi handles it exceptionally well (the Japanese-born cinematographer was responsible for a previous male weepie, Gavin O’Connor's 2011 Warrior).
New Jersey native Matthew Anthony Pellicano Jr. as the young Springsteen hits all the right notes as a watchful boy who longs for his father's approval, but will defend his mother from him as necessary.
There's also a possible thematic reason for the B&W, and that's because it fits with the world Springsteen depicts in some of his songs: an America shaped by the Civil War, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and the like.
Granted, most of his album covers are in full color, but Born to Run, The River, and Nebraska were all built around monochromatic photographs, in addition to the cover of his memoir.
There are also references in Deliver Me From Nowhere to Charles Laughton’s B&W Southern Gothic masterpiece Night of the Hunter, one of the cinematic inspirations behind Nebraska, alongside Terrence Malick's full-color Badlands, which provided the title, since Charlie Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, played in the 1973 film by Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, hailed from the state (and the 1950s spree killers are largely depicted in B&W).
Cooper introduces the adult Springsteen long after he has become a star. In fact, he opens with a sweat-drenched concert before introducing the musician's childhood.
From there, he shifts to Springsteen's time in Colt's Neck, New Jersey in 1981 where he has rented a cabin to spend time out of the public eye and work on the album that would become Nebraska.
This mostly consists of reading, watching old movies on television, sitting in with musician friends at the Stone Pony, and staring at a pad of paper on which lyrics begin to materialize, though with each new impression or experience, he scratches out words, starts again, and repeats the process.
To Cooper's credit, none of this is boring. If anything, it's a reminder of how hard songwriting can be, even for some of the most accomplished artists.
In the process of listening, watching, absorbing, and re-contextualizing, Springsteen, who always had an eye on the punk scene--even if he was never part of it--discovers NYC electronic duo Suicide's self-titled debut. Though he had sung about Vietnam veterans before, it's hard not to imagine that the harrowing "Frankie Teardrop," which features in the film, had an influence on "Born in the U.S.A.," since he also wrote that song during his Colt's Neck residency. (His yelps on the ominous "State Trooper" are pure Alan Vega.)
In the meantime, Springsteen meets with Landau in diners and works with a recording engineer (the always-welcome Paul Walter Hauser), who helps him to shape what is essentially a home recording, so he has to convince Landau this isn't as crazy as it sounds, and Landau has to convince Columbia's Al Teller (David Krumholtz), who wants more hits, like The River's "Hungry Heart," which doesn't make him a bad guy, necessarily–he's just doing his job–but for a time Columbia isn't on board with whatever the hell Springsteen is doing out in the boonies. As he explains in his memoir, Nebraska "would distort, feed back and declare revolution on the common materials of recording," and so he categorically rejects that approach.
We know how this story ends, but Cooper's trick is to make the film feel suspenseful while retracing the steps it takes to get there, including incidents from Springsteen's childhood which play into the album, in addition to the nomadic life he leads before settling down, later, with Patty Scialfa.
Cooper, who made 2009's Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges–along with several genre-oriented features–does all of these things, and White is fully convincing throughout, not least because he isn't doing a Springsteen impression.
His blue eyes have been made brown and his light brown hair has been darkened, but he doesn't speak exactly like Springsteen, who has always had a drawl. I detected a little in a backstage exchange with Graham, who plays Douglas "Dutch" Springsteen, but for the most part, he doesn't sound much different than he does on The Bear or the 11 seasons he spent on Showtime's Shameless; both feature more of a place-less accent than one specific to Chicago.
Of greater importance: he makes Springsteen sympathetic, which isn't as easy as it sounds. There's a reason so many musician biopics begin before the artist has become a star.
We share in their excitement when they play their first concert or cut their first record, but this isn't that kind of film.
Cooper skips Springsteen's years as an isolated high school student or the decade he spent as a struggling twentysomething musician. He's rich and famous, but other than the cabin rental and a vehicle purchase, he isn't extravagant with his earnings.
It's just that he doesn't have to worry about money, like most of us. If fame has changed him in some ways–the craving for privacy, for instance–it hasn't corrupted him, and that's no small feat.
This is also where things become more complicated, in ways Cooper may not have intended. First of all, I get why composite characters are incorporated into fact-based narratives, like Elle Fanning's "Sylvie Russo" in James Mangold's A Complete Unknown–a stand-in for Dylan's Freewheelin' Bob Dylan cover costar Suze Rotolo–but I'm less forgiving when it's a substantial part, and that describes "Faye Webster" (Australian actress Odessa Young), the ardent fan Springsteen hangs out with in Colt's Neck.
Is she based on one person or several? (In his memoir, he mentions "a lovely 22-year-old," and leaves it at that.) Did he really date diner waitresses and single mothers at the height of his fame? It's possible, though I believe it's also intended to confirm that he's a man of the people.
That said, Faye actually pursues him. She approaches Springsteen after a show at the Stone Pony, after a mutual acquaintance introduces the two, and makes it clear that she would like to see him. He seems intrigued, but tells her he's seeing someone. Near as I can tell, it's a white lie, because Cooper doesn't depict him breaking up with anybody, but he does eventually give her a call, and there’s no suggestion that he's two-timing a steady.
Prior to the end of his residency, though, he breaks up with her.
I found Faye convincing as a fan and as a woman who finds him physically attractive, but Cooper's screenplay suggests that she also sees him as a way out of a dead-end existence. It doesn't make her a gold digger, but since there's no mention of his wealth, I wasn't sure how we were meant to take any of this.
Chances are, he was never interested in a serious relationship, but failed to make that clear to Faye, which is a shitty thing to do when the income disparity is so vast, let alone when he connects with her daughter in a way that any single mother would hope a prospective partner would. It means he doesn’t just let down a lonely, lovelorn woman, but a fatherless child, too.
Young isn't bad, but she comes close to Jersey Girl stereotype with her bleached hair, tight jeans, and brassy manner. I'm sure it's how the character was written and directed, but this aspect of the film rings least true, even if Springsteen did date someone exactly like her.
And yet…Faye plays like a character from one of his songs, so I can’t get too aggrieved.
There are American actors who could have played the part, but the Lancashire-born Graham was a masterstroke of casting, because his stock in trade is gangsters, mentors, father figures, and working-class blokes.
He first caught my attention in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (he would later appear in The Irishman, which seems fitting). If Leonardo DiCaprio and, especially, Cameron Diaz seemed out of place in this 19th-century underworld, Graham fit right in as an Irish-American pickpocket.
That history and those skills inform his work here. Just as it took Springsteen years to recognize that his father suffered from depression, it took him years to recognize that he had inherited the same predisposition. For men of Dutch's generation, and even for my dad's, alcohol was the most socially acceptable way to keep the demons at bay.
Springsteen figured out what was going on before it was too late. His father didn't, but at least the son had the means to make sure his needs were met in his twilight years. (For all she suffered, his mother, Adele, never divorced Dutch.)
I'll never know what my dad would think about this film, or about Springsteen's memoir, in which he talks openly about his struggle with depression. It's possible that he wouldn't care to dwell on the darker chapters in a favorite musician's life, but I'd imagine he would have admired the thought, care, and creativity he poured into one of his more personal albums. It also saddens me that I can't ask Charley Cross, the founder of the Springsteen fanzine Backstreets, which ceased publication in 2023 after a 43-year run. Cross died suddenly last August. I would have loved to compare notes with the foremost expert I knew.
Deliver Me from Nowhere burnishes the man's myth to some extent, and Warren Zanes' book is there for the reading for anyone who wants a more detailed picture of the period Scott Cooper depicts, but there are only so many musician biographies that have moved me in the same way. It's a portrait of a famous artist to be sure, and I wouldn't say that it completely breaks the mold, but it's also a portrait of masculinity in crisis in the form of the father and the son who tried, and largely succeeded, to do better.
My father's house shines hard and bright
It stands like a beacon, calling me in the night
Calling and calling, so cold and alone
Shining 'cross this dark highway, where our sins lie unatoned
--"My Father's House," Nebraska (1982)
Bruce Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere opens on Thurs, Oct 23, at Regal Meridian, AMC Pacific Place, the Varsity, and other area theaters.
Images from Rolling Stone/20th Century Studios/Everett Collection (Jeremy Allen White), Amazon (original book cover), Festival Peak (Born to Run album cover), Pinterest (Dutch, Bruce, and Ginnie), Movie Mezzanine (Badlands), Wikipedia (Suicide album cover), the IMDb (Jeremy Allen White and Odessa Young), and Simon and Schuster (Born to Run book cover).
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