The latest trailer for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere sets up a premise that’s familiar to fans of musical biopics. Professionally, Jeremy Allen White’s Bruce Springsteen is on the heels of his most commercially successful album yet, 1980’s The River, but he’s nevertheless caught in a personal and creative transitional period.
As suggested by manager Jon Landau, portrayed by Succession‘s Jeremy Strong, [he’s] afraid of what’s coming, and he feels guilty leaving behind the world he knows.” While label executives are hoping Springsteen rides the wave of success and “hits it out of the park” with the next work, he’s on the cusp of creating 1982’s Nebraska, a sparse American folk record that stands as a dramatic sonic departure from his previous material.
Where White and director Scott Cooper—whose 2009 film Crazy Heart won Jeff Bridges a Best Actor Oscar for the redemptive tale of country singer Hank Thompson—choose to do with this oft-explored premise remains to be seen by all but a few critics, whose mostly positive early reviews have culminated in a 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Rogerebert.com calls the movie “A soulful and meditative character study of a depressed artist laid bare. IndieWire praises the star: “[Jeremy Allen White] doesn’t look a ton like Springsteen… but his performance is steeped in a truth so natural and unforced that by the end of the film you almost forget that he’s playing someone else.” Variety also gives it up for White: “It requires a star to play a star, and an actor to access the Boss’s more introspective side, and The Bear sensation Jeremy Allen White slips easily into the worn denim and sleeveless T-shirts that were Springsteen’s signature.”
However, a more negative review from the Wall Street Journal opines that “the film does a disservice to the windswept austerity of [Nebraska] with clunky writing and cheesy directorial flourishes.”
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere also stars Stephen Graham (Adolescence) as Springsteen’s dad Douglas; Paul Walter Hauser (Richard Jewell) as recording engineer Mike Batlan; Odessa Young (The Order) as Springsteen’s love interest Faye; comedian and podcaster Marc Maron (Glow) as producer Chuck Plotkin; Johnny Cannizzaro (Jersey Boys) as E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt; and David Krumholtz (Oppenheimer) as Columbia record executive Al Teller.
Catch it in theaters on October 24, and check out the latest trailer below:
