Not every music biopic needs to chronicle an entire life, and Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere attempts to depict The Boss in such a way. Bruce Springsteen’s catapult to fame? Skipped over. Instead, the film trades Springsteen’s hits for the gloomier tracks of his sixth studio album, Nebraska. With a focus on this particular chapter of his life, the film sidesteps some biopic clichés — only to trip over others.
To his credit, director-writer Scott Cooper’s decision to adapt Warren Zanes’ Deliver Me From Nowhere for the screen was a good one, to approach the musician’s biopic a bit differently. Instead of documenting Bruce Springsteen’s life and career, the film captures the vignette that is Zanes’ book: the making-of of Nebraska, the rock musician’s departure album, and the emotional low point in his life that prompted him to create something so drastically different from his typical sound. By nature, the movie skips over parts of Springsteen’s life that unknowing audiences went in to see, probably, but also breaking free from some of the typical biopic clichés.
Our first look at Bruce, the musician, is in 1981; he’s already famous, he’s already assembled Clarence Clemons and the rest of the E Street Band, and he has five albums behind him. The Bruce Springsteen we’re shown is one weighed down by depression, who holes himself away in the Colts Neck ranch he rented out at the time, and where he fashioned a makeshift recording studio to write and record Nebraska.
The film makes the choice, perhaps wisely, to flip the “artist vs. the machine“ trope; instead, this struggle simply feels like a footnote in the story. One can hardly blame Columbia record executive Al Teller (David Krumholtz) for his baffled response to Springsteen’s demands for Nebraska via his manager Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) — no singles, no tour, no press, not even his face on the album cover — but a quick concession kills the trope before it becomes a formative part of the story.
Still, while trying to run from typical musical biopic clichés, the movie manages to run into them anyway — and, tragically, inflicts the audience with schmaltzy lines and moments throughout. During the Landau-Teller meeting, Strong’s character delivers the blow that wins Springsteen the artistic freedom he needs during his low point: “In my office, we believe in Bruce Springsteen.” Such is hardly the first groan-inducing moment of the movie.
A line so clichéd that it feels ripped from every music biopic ever, The Boss tells Landau it “feels good to be back out there” with a brutal Jersey accent. He sees a mountain on a hill in a flashback…and writes “Mountain on a Hill.” And, of course, he’s a rocker, so that must mean he’s a heartbreaker. Cue Faye Romano (Odessa Young), a composite character representing Springsteen’s relationships with local women in his Stone Pony days. “I’m moving to L.A.,” he tells her, before she flees from his sight in tears.
And then there’s the king (Boss?) of all music biopic clichés: the childhood flashback. Black-and-white sequences reveal his boyhood trauma. One features the younger Springsteen (Matthew Anthony Pellicano) protecting his mother from his abusive alcoholic father, striking him from behind with a bat; in others, he’s on guard during obligatory father-son bonding time. The most redeeming thing about these flashbacks is the reference to The Night of the Hunter, which served its purpose well as a slick motif for his contentious relationship with dad.
This relationship eventually heals in the movie’s present time when Bruce Springsteen — yes, the adult Bruce — sits on his father’s lap and forgives him for the hard times of his youth. “You had your own battles to fight,” the younger Springsteen says. Those who might criticize Bruce Springsteen’s choice to offer forgiveness to his father —if this discourse comes about —don’t understand the nuances of growing up Italian or Irish. Catholic guilt is a strong force, which Springsteen even notes in his own autobiography when he writes, “The Italian part of me wanted to be successful and show off. The Irish part held guilt and depression. Together they made for a complicated combination.” Such had the potential to add complexity to the movie’s Springsteen, and perhaps salvage the screenplay, by offering a clue to the rocker’s depression; instead, this part of The Boss’s identity is omitted, an unfortunate missed opportunity.
Still, this part of the movie is redeemed by a portrayal of healthy masculinity that, hopefully, strikes a heartfelt chord with audiences. The elder Springsteen tells his son he’s proud of him, moving one of the manliest rockers of the eighties to tears. This mental health lens is an interesting one, as such was a taboo topic in the eighties, but it’s there to be embraced — and appreciated — by a modern audience. This theme of the story is certainly welcome, and connects well to his deep songwriting process for Nebraska. The audience, however, learns very little about Bruce Springsteen beyond his depression.
By movie’s end, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere feels like a mixed bag. It avoids some of the usual biopic traps — with credit for that going to the source material — but crashes headfirst into others with cheesy sentimentality. Fans of The Boss will geek out over the story of this pivotal moment in Springsteen’s career, and moviegoers who turn out for music biopics will certainly appreciate it. But if Cooper’s film hoped to shake up the subgenre, it instead struck the wrong chord.
“Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” will be released nationwide in theaters on October 24, 2025.
