Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
The ZEJ team all-around was pleasantly surprised by how not terrible Springsteen was given the reviews, and it really made me wonder what complaints were. A rough summary of the critical analysis boils down to the movie being boring, tropish and too narrow of a focus on Springsteen’s life. The most valid of those complaints is that it fell into the classic musical biopic tropes, but where it struggled here, it also felt fresh in the genre in that it wasn’t just a 2 hour concert for your favorite old artist. This felt like an actual movie. While it was slow, I didn’t find it boring and appreciated the buildup of the story. The final critique, about the alleged wrong area of focus on Springsteen’s life is the dumbest to me. The movie is an adaptation of Warren Zanes book, which focuses solely on Springsteen’s Nebraska album, a fact I learned post-watch, but after watching the movie, it makes perfect sense why this chapter of Springsteen’s life would best tell his story. It encapsulates his emotional journey. The ZEJ team has been burned out on musical biopics for a while, but this is not like the others. In a good way. I think this is worth checking out.
-Z
I think we all went to this movie with pretty low expectations and hesitations after the disappointment of A Complete Unknown last year and the even lower reviews this had. This is not your typical biopic, and thank goodness. The more slow, even “boring”, feeling plot, while not perfect, actually works really well to tell this particular story. No rags-to-riches cliches, no big moment of sticking it to the man - this felt refreshingly creative, and I definitely came away from it with more of an appreciation for who Bruce Springsteen is as an artist. The more I sit with it, the more I like it. The reviews are just wrong on this one, folks!
-E
I know what I expected and what I got were two totally different things. Usually that means it was bad, but overall I was pleasantly surprised by this film. I liked it more than A Complete Unknown and thought that it really dove into the story of Bruce and not just a concert by J.A.W. Do I think this story needed to be told? Probably not yet at least, but all in all it was a strong film and I hope it gets more love than it currently has by other reviews.
-J
