Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

The nights are getting longer. The days grow colder. Out from the shrubbery, a wayward actor crawls, with a performance in hand he hopes will win him an Academy Award. He's trained hard, "transformed" himself, and will remind people in their fifties that life really was better when they were younger. That's right, it's time for our yearly musical biopic.

I actually quite liked last year's entry into this increasingly monotonous subgenre. A Complete Unknown felt like both an insight into Bob Dylan and a period piece. Peeling back the curtain on folk music and it the ways it changed thanks to huge influences like Dylan. Chalamet's kooky voice helped make the film feel whole, but it wasn't necessary to have a good time with A Complete Unknown.

Bruce Springsteen, on the other hand, is not necessarily known for having a weird little voice. Jeremy Allen White changes his singing a lot to match the Boss, but otherwise he sounds a lot like himself, with the occasional moment of husk following a performance. White's big blue eyes have been shrouded in brown contacts, too, but otherwise it's the Jeremy Allen White we know and love. His performance helps keep Deliver Me From Nowhere afloat, but I don't think it saved the Springsteen biopic.

Whereas A Complete Unknown uses Dylan as a catalyst for a changing genre of music, and the film is therefore about much more than one weirdo with a guitar, the Springsteen movie is very much entirely focused on Springsteen. Even when we cut away to Jeremy Strong's character discussing things with his wife, they're just talking about Bruce's album and the dark undertones hiding within. It's almost like a play-by-play mid-movie, as if the audience isn't expected to be able to keep up with another shot of Bruce staring off into nothingness and its not-so-hidden meaning.

The choice to focus on Springsteen makes sense. You could argue most biopics sit with their centrepiece for most of the film, allowing the audience to feel like they know a legendary artist a bit more personally by the time the credits roll. This is certainly the case with Deliver Me From Nowhere, as Springsteen's biopic pinpoints a moment in his life where he struggled with severe depression while writing his album Nebraska.

We sit with Bruce as he flashes from abusive childhood to depressed adulthood, unable to really make sense of either. Springsteen's father, played by Stephen Graham, is the alcoholic, intimidating stereotype of an abusive father, and while the performance and film try and tell you he had troubles of his own and was deeper than he appeared, the material left on screen fails to live up to these ideas. That sums up a lot of Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, actually. What director Scott Cooper likely wanted to be a raw, rough portrayal of how depression even strikes the greats ends up feeling like it has the weight and nuance of a school assembly about mental health.

There are times when you think the movie is being bold. The portrayal of depression at first seems strong. There's an emptiness in Springsteen's life. The quiet gets a little loud sometimes, as Jeremy Strong's character says in the first few scenes. Springsteen isn't the hero of this story at times. Depression isn't some dragon to defeat, but a shadow of himself that can make him into someone he doesn't like, which only perpetuates the cycle. That was interesting to think about, but it didn't make for much of an engaging time on screen.

The film spends so much time deciding Springsteen is depressed that it then fails to really comprehend what that means. Depression is not known for being a great time, which is perhaps why so few films manage to get it right, and unfortunately Deliver Me From Nowhere isn't one of them. Cooper can't quite seem to decide if this is going to be a biopic unlike any other or if it's going to fall into the rhythm of the genre. We have big musical moments, but they're so few and far between that it felt like someone was making sure that the film remembered to play the hits. There's too much drama for this to feel like a proper portrayal of depression, and too little drama for it to make for an engaging movie. It doesn't help that Springsteen's mental health issues are "cured" with a cut to 10 months later, showing him back on stage having a grand old time.

There are things that stand out about Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. The performances are all as good as they can be. Jeremy Allen White and Jeremy Strong are a great pair together. Stephen Graham feels a bit wasted, but otherwise you can tell everyone is trying to get their own bit of biopic gold. It's just unfortunate these performances are paired with such a bland, by-the-numbers biopic. Maybe Springsteen's world isn't that interesting. Maybe there was more we didn't see. I don't think I'll care to know, as horrible as that sounds for someone who's just shared the darkness of their depression on screen.