Copyright The Boston Globe
Hopefully, White isn’t falling into some kind of biopic rut from which he’ll never escape. This film follows his work as Kerry Von Erich in 2023’s “The Iron Claw.” Like that film, “Deliver Me From Nowhere” leans too heavily on the tropes that were mercilessly spoofed in the 2007 biopic parody “Walk Hard.” From the start of Cooper’s screenplay, the clichés get ticked off like clockwork, which is a shame because there’s an interesting movie trapped inside this one. We begin in Freehold, NJ in 1957. As an 8-year old, Springsteen is played by Matthew Pellicano Jr, a fellow Jersey boy from Bergen County. The past is shot in black and white, because no matter how old you are, your youth will be broadcast through a black and white television in biopic land. Young Bruce is awakened by his father, Douglas (Stephen Graham from “Adolescence”), who forces him to spar by holding boxing lessons in the kid’s bedroom. In a later flashback, young Bruce swings a baseball bat to prevent Douglas from hitting his mother, Adele (Gaby Hoffman), earning a modicum of respect for defending her. Graham is excellent here; in a few scenes we get a feel for who this man is, good and bad. You can almost hear lyrics from “My Hometown” and other Bruce songs as you watch these scenes. After the initial flashback, however, we cut to blistering color footage of the 1981 Riverfront Stadium concert in Cincinnati. White does a commendable job covering “Born to Run,” but he’s even better at switching off The Boss persona and returning to the soft-spoken guy from Down the Shore. Most of the runtime will be spent with this iteration of Springsteen, who’s searching for some peace while a record company pressures him to ride the wave of his latest hit, “Hungry Heart” by creating a new album. As we follow Springsteen to his house in Colts Neck, N.J., “Hungry Heart” blares on the radio for a moment before he turns to an ad for the infamous amusement venue, Action Park. My fellow Jersey folks will have fun with little details like that, as well as with scenes in The Stone Pony and around Asbury Park. The seeds for “Nebraska” are planted and sown at this house. Unlike the material that later became the “Born in the U.S.A.” album that catapulted Springsteen into the stratosphere, “Nebraska” does not feature the E Street Band, nor is it recorded on fancy sound mixing equipment. The only other person present is Mike Batlan (Paul Walter Hauser, very good here), a guitar technician who helps with the mixing and recording. This explains the album’s raw, distant, and haunting stripped-down sound. For lyrics and subject matter, Springsteen finds inspiration in the short stories of Flannery O’Connor and “Badlands,” director Terrence Malick’s 1973 take on the Charles Starkweather murders, which is somehow playing on television 24/7 in this movie. The title track of the album is presented from Starkweather’s point of view. The singer’s own turbulent youth torments him throughout his creative process. “Deliver Me From Nowhere” works best when it’s documenting how Springsteen’s depression shaped his music. White makes us believe that he’s trying to get this extremely personal artistic statement out, that it may be the only thing to save him from the abyss. Not even a romance with Stone Pony regular Faye (Odessa Young) can soothe his soul. Just when we’ve settled in with The Boss working though his demons, Cooper turns the film over to Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong), Springsteen’s producer-manager and friend. Suddenly, we’re involved in battles with the label over how “Nebraska” was recorded, and whether it will be a career-ruining disaster. Not even a memorable cameo by Marc Maron, as record producer Chuck Plotkin can save this section. It plays like an entirely different, less interesting movie. Strong overacts in almost every scene, giving speeches about how great his buddy is. Nobody watching this movie will care about record label battles and other business-related minutiae. We want to spend time with Bad Scooter as he works his way toward what we know will be a classic album. “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” has enough good material to make you wish it were better. Unfortunately, it owes debts to the biopic genre that no honest film can pay. ★★ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE Written and directed by Scott Cooper. Based on the book, “Deliver Me from Nowhere” by Warren Zanes. Starring Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Marc Maron, Gaby Hoffman. At AMC Boston Common, Landmark Kendall Square, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 120 min. PG-13 (sex, language as salty as the Atlantic) Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.
