Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (2025)

I was surprised when Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere didn't take off with audiences. Biopics of legendary musicians tend to do well, the Nebraska album (the recording of which this film focuses on) is considered a masterpiece, and White is a bit of a phenom (albeit a small one) as the film was released. But when I finally got around to watching it I started to see that it just didn't come together in a way that made it feel urgent or even that relevant. 

This film is about depression. Springsteen hasn't been shy about talking about his struggles and the film takes a single period in his life, just as his career is taking off and he decides to make a stripped down album without singles or tour promotions. He is unable to hold a relationship together and he is haunted by memories of an abusive father. Deliver Me From Nowhere's arc is about a man who has everything producing iconic art but unable to live happily in his life. 

Yet the film never quite finds it footing. Cooper doesn't find a way to make it flow or feel real. He brings an almost too subtle, quiet approach which never makes the story feel lived and so when the ending comes, a rather triumphant moment of a successful album, a cathartic moment with his parents, and the upcoming smash success of one of the biggest albums in rock history (Born in the USA) the pathos just don't feel earned. 

I appreciated White's performance. He plays it cool without big "acty" scenes, instead just quietly playing Bruce as a real human. While he finds the Boss' mannerisms and way of being quite well he doesn't feel like his doing an impression of the rock star. The film never quiet gives him the opportunity to tell this journey effectively. The film isn't badly put together it just isn't overly successful in making the story resonate. He does sing the songs well, sounding surprisingly true to the source. 

The challenge here is that Bruce's story isn't overly dramatic. His struggle with depression is quite average (weird to say when speaking of such a super star) and doesn't have the "rock bottom" style messiness that stories like these thrive on. His high functioning mental health struggles don't make for the sort of Oscar-baity cinema that people like to lap up. This isn't fatal. Perhaps a better film could have found the way to make this sort of more intimate, and frankly realistic, story leap off the screen, but this doesn't quite get there. And that's too bad because there is a good story here and one that might have been able to touch a lot of hearts. 

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Marc Maron, David Krumholtz

Writer/Director: Scott Cooper