SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE
Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, and Odessa Young
Director: Scott Cooper
ADRIANO
Better Man aside, I haven’t liked the musician biopics that we've gotten recently. Deliver Me from Nowhere solves a lot of those movies’ problems while still being mediocre. I appreciate the non-sensationalized approach to Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White), sticking to the ground and taking a more introspective angle with White's focus honing in on his subject’s silent darkness. Unfortunately, despite the best of intentions, writer/director Scott Cooper never once made me feel emotionally invested enough in Springsteen. With its dull presentation, this was well-meaning but still lacklustre.
QUENTIN
Deliver Me from Nowhere avoids nearly all the musical biopic clichés — tragic upbringing, addiction, ego, womanizing, hero worship, the rise-fall-rise story structure — but that’s because it’s not really about Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White), the person. It’s a biopic for his folk record Nebraska. Frankly, I learned almost nothing about the man other than he suffers from seemingly mild depression, but I learned a lot about the making of this one album that, honestly, I had never heard of before. With zero familiarity, that’s only interesting to a point, resulting in a movie that is a little bland even if the performances are top notch.
PAIGE
Deliver Me from Nowhere is more of a character study than your typical paint-by-numbers musician biopic as the film focuses on the man behind all the noise. Despite some sluggish pacing and wonky dialogue, its somber, rhythmic, and introspective tone fits perfectly with what director Scott Cooper aims to capture about this specific chapter of Bruce Springsteen’s (Jeremy Allen White) life. For his part, White delivers a vulnerable yet nuanced performance that truly encapsulates Springsteen while still adding his own touch to “The Boss.” Just like the Nebraska album, this film is raw and bare bones.
NICK
I understand exactly what director Scott Cooper was going for with Deliver Me from Nowhere. He wanted a film that mirrored the homegrown and stripped down feel of the album Nebraska. He succeeds in that, but, unfortunately, it doesn’t make for a particularly interesting film. I’ll give credit for escaping most of the clichés you often see in music biopics, but the angle of depression doesn't come through well on screen. And although Jeremy Allen White is great when he takes the stage as Bruce Springsteen, he doesn’t connect the same with the emotional beats; really impressed with his vocals, though.
