SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE

Based on Warren Zanes's book, Cooper's screenplay wisely (or seemingly so) just focuses on one moment in Springsteen's life rather than the traditional cradle-to-grave approach. This worked magnificently in James Mangold's 'A Complete Unknown' on the iconic Bob Dylan less than a year ago, but it proves less effective here. Despite the emotional turmoil, 'Deliver Me From Nowhere' is almost entirely dramatically inert. You realise halfway through that very little has happened, and soon realise that not very much is going to happen. The problem is that, in his relatively conventional approach, Cooper never finds a way to visualise or activate Springsteen's inner life, outside of shooting Jeremy Allen White looking tortured and hot in various different locations while a song plays on the soundtrack. We're supposed to connect his visual isolation with the haunting aural isolation in the music, but the connection isn't obvious enough. Cooper hasn't given us enough information to make sense of what we're seeing.

We're told often (so thunderously often) that these songs mean a lot to Bruce and that, in some way, they are connected to his relationship with his father, but that connection is never unpacked for us. We're not even entirely sure what their relationship was, other than "complicated". There are also allusions to other references, such as Terrence Malick's 1973 masterpiece 'Badlands', but again, this isn't interrogated. You keep waiting for the penny to drop, for the big revelation to come, but like so much about this film, you eventually just accept it isn't coming. That isn't to say that a music biopic needs to provide you with everything - again, 'A Complete Unknown' expertly navigated around using Bob Dylan's history as a primer to understanding his music. In that case, though, we still came to understand the spiritual significance of the music itself, even if just for those listening in the world of the film (a music biopic where the biography is of the music, not the artist themselves). We spend so little time sitting in the songs in 'Deliver Me From Nowhere' that, only by listening to 'Nebraska' after the screening did I get any sense of what Bruce was writing about. It's all well and good to seek it out after the fact, but I want to understand in the moment, otherwise I'm left wondering why this subject was important enough to dramatise in the first place. There's a sense that the film is expecting us to put the pieces together ourselves, but we haven't been given enough material to do so.

Dramatic drive also can't be found in the personal relationships in the film. The only three characters Bruce continually interacts with are Landau, Faye and his recording engineer Mike Batlan (Paul Walter Hauser, 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps', 'Richard Jewell'), but only Faye offers any kind of resistance to Bruce's needs and behaviours (often as a narrative afterthought). It's refreshing to see how supportive Landau is as a manager, but watching him say yes to every one of Bruce's requests just isn't that dramatic. There's almost no conflict in the film, apart from a brief spark of energy from Marc Maron as Bruce's producer Chuck Plotkin telling him they can't preserve the audio effects from his cassette recordings, which he very quickly... well... does. What Bruce is pushing against is something internal, but again, we simply do not know what that is. Most frustrating of all, when someone finally just asks the man to tell them what is wrong, we fade to black and jump ten months ahead. It's as if the film is actively trying not to let us in to Springsteen's pain, which again, could have worked, but needed to be compensated with something else.

It doesn't help that Cooper's screenplay is diabolically bad, almost entirely driven by exposition. There are two genuinely laughable scenes between Landau and his wife Barbara (Grace Gummer, 'Frances Ha', TV's 'Mr. Robot') where they just bat pre-written copy about Bruce's music back and forth (the second doesn't even give Barbara anything to say, instead sitting in bed, moisturising her hands, looking pensive). It's a miracle that Jeremy Strong is as great as he is in this film, with some of the awful dialogue he has to deliver, and Jeremy Allen White survives unscathed purely because Bruce doesn't have to say much, just stand and brood. You can tell these two actors have an intense and personal connection with their characters and with each other, but neither Cooper's writing nor direction supports either of them to really shine. They make it through on their natural talents pretty much by the skin of their teeth. Hardly anyone else does, with Odessa Young left to languish in a completely irrelevant romantic plot that pretty much just gives up on her.

It's hard to know what Scott Cooper is trying to say with 'Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere'. That Bruce Springsteen is an extraordinary artist? We already know. That he draws on an inner sadness to create his great works of art? Sure, but we don't know what that is. It's a real risk with a music biopic that the storyteller either cannot get past their intense love for their subject or that they assume we come to the film with extensive prior knowledge. In this case, Cooper is guilty of both. As a Springsteen novice, I didn't leave this film with a greater understanding of who the Boss is or what makes his music so distinct. I didn't feel moments where electricity ran up my spine, awed by the music he made and its impact on those around him. Time will tell whether the film will have made me a Bruce Springsteen fan the way 'I'm Not There' or 'Walk The Line' made me a Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash fan, but if it eventually does, it will have been from very little effort on its part. For all its obvious awe of Bruce Springsteen, 'Deliver Me From Nowhere' didn't really deliver me anywhere.