Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (2025)
Directed by: Scott Cooper
Premise: Based on Warren Zanes’ book. In 1981, Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White) is on the verge of musical superstardom. He wrestles with depression and records the album Nebraska.
What Works: There have been a lot of musical biopics in recent years, some better than others, but many are cautionary tales of Hollywood excess. To its credit, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is focused on the music. Instead of a career retrospective, this film focuses on the creation of one of Springsteen’s most personal albums which he recorded under unusual conditions at a critical point in his professional and personal life. As dramatized here, Springsteen was on the verge of musical superstardom but he wasn’t sure how to reconcile his blue-collar identity with wealth and fame and he wrestled with depression and memories of his upbringing. Out of that anxiety came the 1982 album Nebraska. This film approaches Springsteen and his work in a raw style, embracing the minutia of the creative process. That’s the best part of Deliver Me from Nowhere. It’s a drama about a songwriter struggling with his anxieties through his art while negotiating the technical limits of recording technology and fighting the commercial forces of the music industry. Jeremy Allen White does a great job playing Bruce Springsteen. He looks a bit like the singer and his voice matches impressively well. White gets the soulfulness that made Springsteen unique. And unlike a lot of other Hollywood biopics, Deliver Me from Nowhere is not hagiographic. Springsteen is allowed to be flawed and human which gives some credibility to his artistic and mental health struggles.
What Doesn’t: A lot of musical biopics play as a greatest hits compilation, celebrating the music and recreating classic performances. That’s not the case in Deliver Me from Nowhere. It dramatizes recording sessions and includes fragments of songs but it does not have the concert performance sequences we typically see in these movies. It’s not going to satisfy viewers looking for a musical revue. Deliver Me from Nowhere is emotionally restrained to a fault. This is the story of an artist channeling the darker parts of his psyche but the audience is kept at an emotional distance. Springsteen’s complicated relationship with his parents (Gaby Hoffmann and Stephen Graham) is presented as an important part of his psychology but the film doesn’t actually reveal much about Springsteen’s family life. The flashback sequences come across perfunctory and the moments that are intended as emotional payoffs don’t resonate.
Bottom Line: Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere succeeds as a portrait of an artist at work but its psychological profile is emotionally flat. This is not a crowd-pleasing musical but it does offer a distinct take on the show business biopic.
Episode: #1072 (November 2, 2025)