Springsteen : Deliver Me from Nowhere

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is a film that aspires to depth, but too often confuses restraint with revelation. Scott Cooper, who found tenderness beneath the silent despair in Crazy Heart, delivers something here that seems more embalmed than alive, a film so respectful of its subject that it ends up mummifying it. The initial premise was promising: revisiting the creation of Nebraska, the austere and haunting 1982 album that laid Bruce Springsteen bare at a time when fame, guilt, and self-doubt were at odds. But instead of capturing that claustrophobic intensity, Scott Cooper offers us a strangely stifling portrait, respectful in tone and visually meticulous, but emotionally distant. It's as if the film, terrified of betraying The Boss, never dares to let him truly break down.

Jeremy Allen White delivers a committed and physically grounded performance: his hunched posture, hoarse voice, and tired eyes evoke a man weighed down by his own mythology. Yet, despite all his precision, something essential is missing. Jeremy Allen White's Bruce Springsteen resembles a figure carved in marble: precise in his contours, hollow in his spirit. We sense him searching for the volatility and grace that defined the contradictions of Bruce Springsteen—the working-class saint grappling with success—but the script confines him to long, meditative scenes that never ignite. There is a studied melancholy in his whispered monologues and thoughtful silences, but little emotional momentum. The film asks him to simmer constantly without ever boiling over, and after two hours of quiet reflection, the performance risks feeling more like an exercise in restraint than a revelation.

Scott Cooper's direction reflects the same contradiction. He clearly reveres the subject—every shot is framed like an album cover, every transition bathed in sepia light—but his aesthetic control stifles spontaneity. Masanobu Takayanagi's cinematography, while beautiful, traps the film in a kind of cinematic still life. The camera lingers on deserted highways, rain-soaked windows, and the glow of dim motel lights, trying to echo the haunted America of Nebraska. Yet what Nebraska had—the thrill of danger, the sense that violence and grace could coexist in the same verse—is replaced here by embellished melancholy. Even the silences, which should be suffocating, seem decorative. You sense that the director is trying to channel Springsteen's inner emptiness, but instead he delivers a succession of beautifully composed shots where meaning struggles to pierce the veneer.

The supporting roles, despite their strength on paper, never find a solid foothold in this atmosphere of respectful gloom. Jeremy Strong, who plays producer and confidant Jon Landau, brings a quiet intelligence to the film, but his performance is reduced to a symbol: he is less a man than a personification of loyalty. Stephen Graham's portrayal of Bruce's father, the specter of an unspoken trauma, should anchor the story in something raw and personal, but his scenes are too fragmented to be memorable. Gaby Hoffmann, Odessa Young, and Paul Walter Hauser appear as echoes of connection, their presences fleeting and underutilized. The result is a world populated by ghosts, characters who seem not to live around Springsteen, but rather to gravitate around his myth. In trying to capture the loneliness of an artist, Cooper ends up isolating the film itself.

Even the music, ironically, seems muffled. The few moments when White performs are filmed with such caution that they border on sterility. There is little of the raw, improvised energy that characterized the Nebraska sessions, where creativity bordered on collapse. Instead, we are offered a polite approximation: discreet strumming, whispered lyrics, the promise of a catharsis that never arrives. Cooper's choice to dwell on silence rather than sound is admirable in concept, but in its execution, it drains the film of its rhythm. What should have been an exploration of artistic vulnerability turns into a long lament. The film desperately wants to reflect the raw authenticity of Nebraska, but it lacks the courage to embrace its harshness, its raw imperfection, its sense that something vital could break at any moment.

In the final act, when the film shows Bruce Springsteen confronting his father or contemplating the hollow victory of fame, the film's emotional distance becomes undeniable. These scenes should move you—the son confronting the shadow that shaped him, the artist facing his own alienation—but Scott Cooper keeps everything too clean, too refined. There is no real danger, no sense of raw truth. It's a film about creative risk that takes none itself. As the credits roll, we admire the work, but remain indifferent to the man at its center. The experience is akin to listening to a carefully remastered version of Nebraska — technically impressive, but stripped of the hiss, grain, and pain that made it human.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is a beautifully photographed disappointment—an elegy for an artist who forgets to show his pulse. Jeremy Allen White delivers a performance marked by quiet conviction, and Scott Cooper directs with visual grace, but together they create a film that confuses silence with soul. The intention is noble: to honor the moment when Bruce Springsteen turned inward and created something painfully honest. Yet in striving so hard to pay homage to him, the film forgets to question him. It ends up being smooth where it should be raw, distant where it should be intimate, respectful where it should be real. A real disappointment for a long-time Bruce Springsteen fan like me, who has had the chance to see him in concert in Paris.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
Written and directed by Scott Cooper
Based on Deliver Me from Nowhere by Warren Zanes
Produced by Scott Cooper, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Eric Robinson, Scott Stuber
Starring Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Odessa Young
Cinematography: Masanobu Takayanagi
Edited by Pamela Martin
Music by Jeremiah Fraites
Production companies: Gotham Group, Night Exterior, Bluegrass 7
Distributed by 20th Century Studios
Release dates: August 29, 2025 (Telluride), October 22, 2025 (France), October 24, 2025 (United States)
Running time: 119 minutes

Seen on October 24, 2025 at Gaumont Disney Village, Theater 10, seat A18

The Walt Disney Company's recent productions have, sadly, proved to be real disappointments. By seeking to control critical discourse, impose its dictates on the press, and prioritize communication over sincerity, the studio is now reaping the rewards of public disinterest. The observation is striking: during our screening, there were only five people in the theater—a telling symbol of the growing gap between Disney and those who still wanted to believe in its magic.

Mulder's Mark: