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PG-13
for thematic material, some sexuality, strong language, and smoking.
Starring
Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Gaby Hoffmann
Director
Scott Cooper
Producer
Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Eric Rob
Genres
Biopic
Drama
Music
Released by
20th Century Studios on
10/24/2025
Nationwide
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Trailer
Review
The cinematic landscape has become so cluttered with the biopics of musical legends (and a few that fall into the "legends in their own mind" category) that the tendency is to shun these chronicles of hard times and inner struggles in favor of reading a Wikipedia entry while playing an album. The latest victim of this trend is Bruce Springsteen. To his credit, writer/director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) aims higher than delivering a two-hour jukebox of greatest hits. His ambition-to explore the uneasy coexistence of mental illness and musical genius, with the latter acting as a kind of therapy for the former-is admirable, but the execution falls short. The downbeat narrative is choppy, and the relentless need to overexplain grows tiresome.
The movie avoids pitfall number one of musician biopics: it doesn't attempt to cram 30 years of songs and excess into two hours. Instead, it stays focused on a brief window during 1981-82, when the title character (played primarily by Jeremy Allen White, with Matthew Anthony Pellicano portraying him as an eight-year-old) is struggling to balance life, work, and a deteriorating mental state. Flashbacks reveal the roots of his depression-an upbringing marked by his father's alcohol-fueled violence and his own inability to cope with it.
Cooper digs deeply into the music icon's depression-a choice that results in a dour, occasionally off-putting film. Bruce isn't exactly a ray of sunshine. He's tense, withdrawn, and when he smiles, it rarely looks real. The film acknowledges many of Springsteen's early-'80s hits ("Hungry Heart," "Born in the U.S.A.," and others are covered by White) but focuses more on the emotional turbulence that led to his stark 1982 acoustic album Nebraska.
One of the film's worst missteps is its reliance on armchair psychoanalysis. In a glaring example of "tell, don't show," Cooper stages conversations between Springsteen's manager/producer Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) and Landau's wife (Grace Gummer), during which he solemnly lectures about Bruce's inner demons while she nods sagely. The film treats Landau like a saintly figure-standing up to the Evil Record Producers and offering Bruce paternal comfort in equal measure.
Following a brief black-and-white sojourn in 1957, the story begins with a rousing concert sequence at the end of a major tour. Soon after, settling into a rented house in Colt's Neck, New Jersey, Springsteen finds himself at loose ends. Restless and already under pressure from the record company to amplify the breakthrough success that accompanied the Top-10 landing of "Hungry Heart" on the Billboard Hot 100, Springsteen joins a few friends on-stage at Asbury Park's The Stone Pony for a set. After the show, he meets Faye Romano (Odessa Young)-a fictionalized composite girlfriend. Their romance oscillates between sweeping gestures (like reopening a carousel at 2 a.m.) and long stretches of silence. Meanwhile, as he works through the raw material that becomes Nebraska, he and the E Street Band begin recording tracks destined for Born in the U.S.A.
Jeremy Allen White gets high marks for mimicry. He walks the walk (literally) and sings the songs. (He's good enough that Scott has no compunctions about allowing a few instances of the real Springsteen's voice onto the soundtrack.) But the performance itself, perhaps intentionally, is a monotone. This Bruce never truly connects with anyone, and when he does display emotion, it feels contrived. A late-night driving scene in which he floors the accelerator in a fit of suicidal desperation rings especially false-pure movie mythmaking.
Springsteen devotees will probably love what Cooper has provided. While the film doesn't deify The Boss, it paints him in a largely sympathetic light and sprinkles in enough music to keep fans engaged-even if too many songs are cut off midstream. The period detail is flawless, from the 1957 flashbacks to the Reagan-era ambience. But the movie itself feels shapeless and shallow. The links between creativity and mental illness are gestured toward, not explored. What remains is a familiar portrait of a tortured artist whose genius coexists uneasily with despair-a cliché the film never transcends. Deliver Me from Nowhere wants to be profound, but it mostly feels like it's still searching for a chorus.
© 2025 James Berardinelli
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