Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (2025): Can't Start a Fire Without a Spark

By Len Weiler

If you are a Bruce Springsteen fan or follow contemporary movies at all, you are undoubtedly aware by now of the new film Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, which was released last week with a great deal of publicity – not just movie reviews but press interviews, late night TV appearances, analysis, commentary, and ads. So instead of a long, analytical review here,  I just want to make a few points about the film.

The first of these is that I really enjoyed the movie.   [Personal note: During a significant chunk of my life, I’ve been a huge fan of “The Boss” myself. I’ve seen him perform live several times and in addition to his musical repertoire, I continue to admire his compassion and humanity. To me, he is more than an entertainer – he is a mensch. I should add that Bruce and I are the same age, so some of my appreciation may be generational.] 

The second point is that this is not – I repeat, not – a concert film. At all. [Although it has been not so subtly pitched as such.]  Yes, there are depictions of Springsteen singing Springsteen songs in the picture - all of which are performed by the actor playing him, Jeremy Allen White (see below). Most of these are not in-concert performances. They’re contemplative moments with Springsteen, in his bedroom, composing some of the songs which will eventually be part of his 1982 album, Nebraska. If you are familiar with that album, you will understand that these songs are not muscular rock and roll tunes.  

There IS a little rock’n’roll though. For example, the film opens in early 1981 at the conclusion of Springsteen’s The River tour, as Bruce [Allen] belts out Born to Run to an appreciative audience. Later on, we’ll see him in the studio sometime in 1982 recording a rousing version the newly written Born In The USA (the biggest hit of Springsteen’s career, although it was not released until mid-1984). A couple of times, we even see Bruce at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, helping out his local buddies on songs like John Lee Hooker’s Boom Boom.

But what the movie is primarily about is a major depressive period in Springsteen’s life - the “nowhere” of the film’s title - just as he was becoming a big star and on the cusp of being a superstar.  You could say he was an artist in transition, but it seems this crisis went deeper than that. He was juggling the certainty that he was destined for big things with a powerful, sometimes paralyzing feeling of self-doubt.  The film unsubtly suggests that this related to childhood experiences with his alcoholic father.  That this explanation feels overly simplistic is the film’s narrative weak point.    

The other theme in Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is to explore how Springsteen’s personal crisis contributed to his artistic process. Springsteen was still prolifically writing songs, some of which eventually wound up on the Born in the USA album and made him a superstar, but that prospect was far from his mind in 1982. What was on his mind was a set of songs which became his downbeat but (eventually) highly esteemed acoustic album Nebraska, which was released in 1982. These songs were dark, serious, and not in the least upbeat. Nebraska, the album’s title song, is about the killing spree of Charles Starkweather. Atlantic City tells the story of a young man just trying to make a living, moving to the beach town, then compelled to join the mob. Other songs tell how the hopelessness of a factory closure results in a senseless murder, or of a car thief driving along hoping against hope that he won’t get pulled over. 

Not the stuff of pop music. But reflective of a troubled genius’s state of mind. How the Nebraska album got released with its lo-fi sound and down beat content despite strong objections from Springsteen’s record company is a fascinating tale of its own.  

Why should we care? If the production had been a hack job or if the the story been about an unfortunate unknown, I suspect most of us would be far less likely to watch.  But Deliver Me From Nowhere is not that movie; rather, it turns out to be an engaging, intriguing, thought-provoking, well-made saga. Perhaps most of all, it features some excellent performances, notably from Jeremy Strong as Springsteen’s manager/friend, Gaby Hoffmann as his mother, Stephen Graham, as his dad and Odessa Young as his (fictional) girlfriend.  

And, my final point: Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere features a remarkable performance – musically and dramatically - by Jeremy Allen White, who transforms himself to look and sound quite like 35-year-old Bruce Springsteen. This accomplishment reminds me of Timothee Chalamet’s take as young Bob Dylan in last year’s A Complete Unknown, even though the two films are very different in almost every other way. (It's neither here nor there, but isn’t it amazing and rather wonderful that both actors not only had to sing like their characters, but to learn how to play guitar, essentially from scratch in order to play their roles!)

Definitely worth seeing.

 2 hours                         Rated PG-13

Grade: B+

In wide release