Nate At The Movies

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

Much like the superhero fatigue that has plagued society for the last few years (funny, though, considering that’s when I decided to start watching them), it feels like the music biopic’s time in the sun has come and gone, yet a new music biopic comes out every six months. Even with some fatigue in the genre, I wanted to see Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, and I hoped that it would inject some life into the form. Sadly, that did not happen.

Most, if not all, of the typical music biopic beats were present: performances of the artist’s greatest hits (though few and far between here, actually), a forgettable love interest and glimpse of a life outside of music, and the main character questioning who they are in a world of people who seem to already know. This film was laden with clichés, which was a bit tiring, but what was maybe more frustrating was how it chose to diverge from the formula.

The film pulled the wool over my eyes with the trailer, because I was not expecting the film to focus as heavily on Springsteen’s folk turn as they did. While this decision led to some solid emotional moments and plenty of introspection, I wasn’t in love with the decision to demote Springsteen’s more notable rock and pop catalog in the lone Springsteen film available to me right now. Biopics that tell one story of a person’s life rather than the whole thing still usually use the first act to give the audience some background on the person, and that exposition was sorely missed here.

While it sounds like I only have negative things to say about this film, there were parts I still enjoyed. Jeremy Allen White did a great job as Springsteen—not Oscar-worthy, in my opinion, but still great—and many of the performances were solid. I thought the relationship between Bruce and his dad was really interesting, and their final few scenes together were the emotional gut-punch the film needed. The music was also good as well, though I wanted more performances of the songs that I knew! I love that Bruce had a folk era, and much of it sounded good, but play the stuff I know!

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere was a mixed bag in a genre known for its consistency in being a mixed bag, which was disappointing considering Bruce Springsteen is such a lively and interesting subject. Much like the Whitney Houston biopic that came out a few years ago, I feel like this one may be lost to time a little quicker than its contemporaries that try new things in the form. I can’t believe this is true, but Better Man—the biopic about the man no one knew anything about that replaced him with a monkey—is still the best music biopic of the year.