I want to start with a brief story – in early 2014, I was in a strange place. I had just turned eighteen and was dealing with the challenges of finishing high school and entering a new stage of my life. For my birthday, my parents had bought me tickets to Bruce Springsteen’s first concert in South Africa, coming decades after he had cancelled his appearance due to his refusal to perform under the Apartheid regime. In the week leading up to the concert, my beloved grandmother passed away, and in such situations, a concert is not something that is seen as a priority. Nonetheless, I was implored to go to the concert – and for nearly four hours, Springsteen (an artist whom I adored beyond any description) held that stadium in the palm of his hands, to the point where we didn’t even notice the pouring rain. It was a beautiful moment, and truly one in which I felt a special connection with an artist I credit for helping me through one of the most challenging stages of my life. Needless to say, he means a lot to me, and I will always have a strong affection for the work he has done. However, this does mean that the recent efforts to tell his story on screen in the form of Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere were bound to be disappointing. Written and directed by Scott Cooper, who adapts the biography of the same title by Warren Zanes, the film sets out to follow Springsteen as he records Nebraska, widely considered his greatest album and the one that established him as a true artistic force. Oscillating between the challenges he encountered when recording an album unlike anything he had done before, and recreations of his childhood in working-class New Jersey (particularly the tense relationship he had with his father), the film tries to be a haunting, complex portrait of an artistic genius, but instead falls into the same trap as just about every other recent musical biography, lacking the nuance or sincerity to actually say anything valuable or contribute to the discussion in any way that can be considered unique. Dull and unnecessary, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is a major disappointment, and a film that required much more nuance to actually leave a genuine impression.

While I am very critical of this film for reasons that will be outlined imminently, it’s important to note that I’m not entirely against musical biographies as a whole. A film occupying a genre that has proven to be very popular is not an immediate indication of artistic bankruptcy, but it does make us wonder whether or not certain works deserve all these resources. Springsteen’s story is not without merit – anyone who has listened to his music or seen him perform knows that he is the embodiment of enthusiasm and passion, and whether blasting through the high-energy hits like “Born to Run” or “Badlands”, or one of his more subtle, quiet songs like “Atlantic City” or “I’m on Fire”, he’s always a captivating performer. Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere mostly focuses on the tug-of-war between his two styles of music, with the majority of the story being set around the recording of Nebraska, an album lauded as a masterpiece now, but was at one point considered a poor business decision by the people responsible for promoting his work, which immediately gives the film a point of view. The problems with this approach are not necessarily to do with the story itself, and while we may have wanted to explore the dynamic between Springsteen and his parents slightly more (the entire film could have been set during his childhood and formative years and probably been just as effective), the chosen narrative avenue is not without its merits. The principle of many biographical films is to show how someone overcomes adversity, which is essentially the premise for this film, which also layers it with conversations around Springsteen as a tortured artist, which is perhaps the one aspect that may not necessarily be untrue (he had many struggles throughout his life), but it becomes less of a case of showing how he took on these challenges, and more just an opportunity to position him as someone who merely suffered throughout his life, with very little joy being found for the majority of a film that is not nearly as impactful a portrait as we may have hoped.

From the beginning of production (or at least from our introduction to the film’s creation), Jeremy Allen White was attached to play Springsteen, which immediately proved to be a divisive choice. He bears only a slight resemblance to the musician, and his style of acting was not entirely adherent to what we know of Springsteen, whether it’s his mannerisms or general personality. However, White is also a very gifted actor, and a physical resemblance is not enough to make an accurate judgment of a performance, whether positive or negative. There was still an opportunity for him to deliver a strong portrayal, but it required a lot more work than we may have imagined. He does his best, but the problem is that the film doesn’t quite know how to embody Springsteen, particularly his off-stage persona. He’s one of our greatest living performers, but what makes him so appealing is that the moment he steps off stage, he’s no longer The Boss, but rather an ordinary man pursuing his passion. He didn’t live the traditional life of a rock star, and while this could have led to a very intriguing approach to exploring his life, I don’t think Cooper was aware of the perils of making a film that peers into Springsteen’s domestic life without actually offering any real insights in the process. White is not entirely to blame (since there are issues with the characterisation that hinge more on Cooper’s writing and directing), but his performance is simply too internal – he struggles to capture the raw charisma of Springsteen’s on-stage persona, since despite the passion being there (part of which has to do with the presence of these recognisable songs), it is a lot more vacant, and it seems like White is simply going through the motions. He’s a very intense actor, and someone who has carved out a decent niche for himself – but in terms of having the renegade spirit that Springsteen consistently embodied, he falls short and takes the entire film with him. The supporting cast is not that much better – Jeremy Strong and Stephen Graham do what they can with characters that should have had stronger arcs, but there’s only so much that can be done with such a film before it becomes truly too exhausting, especially one that was already bordering on two hours.

Directly tied into White’s middling performance is the tone of the film – Springsteen is known for being a more serious, reserved individual who takes his art very seriously and isn’t usually associated with playfulness. However, reducing him to nothing more than a sad-sack tortured artist feels questionable, and not even his involvement with the project (which can be considered something of a ratification of its approach) is enough to make it any less disappointing. The problem isn’t actually that he’s perceived as someone with significant flaws, but rather that the film that surrounds him is so dour and unappealing, we struggle to ever find much value in how it presents the story. We live in an era where there isn’t any shortage of works written or created about a particular artist – there are countless biographical sources, documentaries (both fan-made and official) and a range of works inspired by his career. A bland biopic in which we don’t get any new information and instead just have to patiently watch as the story goes through the motions is simply not enough to hold our attention and ultimately proves to be the overall downfall of the film as a whole. It moves far too slowly, and there is a lot of repetition – Cooper struggles to set a consistent tone, and the plot is so meandering, we can easily drop out at any point and return a few minutes later and still get the general gist of what is being communicated, which is not an indication of its iron-clad narrative, but rather the inverse: Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is a poorly-edited film that lacks any real structure, despite existing in a genre where there are at least half a dozen preconceived narrative structures that could have easily been implemented to ensure that what was being communicated was authentic and meaningful. None of that is the case here, and it ultimately becomes a film defined by overwrought emotions and a lack of nuance in all the places where we would expect it to at least be slightly compelling and captivating.

As we’ve seen far too frequently in recent years, a film that makes the viewer simply want to listen to the artist’s music rather than engage with the story that is being told has to be considered something of a misfire. Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is not an atrocity – it’s decently made and has some good elements, but these emerge more as a result of just being merely competent, being at least partially aware of the usual pratfalls that define these films, rather than trying to be particularly inventive. If there was ever going to be an opportunity for one of these films to prove itself to have at least some degree of artistic integrity, it would be this one – Springsteen’s life is not a tragedy in the way we often see in these films, and Cooper is a strong director, someone who we would expect to be able to more practically understand how to make such a film without resorting to the same tired cliches. Unfortunately, that is not the case here, since Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is truly and wholeheartedly lacklustre in every conceivable way. It’s not particularly entertaining (not even the musical numbers feel all that exciting – they just impel us to seek out the actual live performances, which are far more enthralling rather than being mere recreations of iconic moments), and it doesn’t say anything all that original, being more focused on the same tricks that we always associate with the genre and never actually being able to rise above it in any meaningful way. Springsteen certainly deserved far better – I kept being reminded of Blinded by the Light, a film that does so much more to honour his music and legacy than this film ever could, with everything ultimately just serving to underline Springsteen’s ingenuity rather than actually being able to make any truly interesting observations in the process.