Film Review - Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere

It’s only October, but Jeremy Allen White already has one hand on the 2026 Best Actor Oscar courtesy of his remarkable performance in Scott Cooper’s Nebraska biopic, which tells us plenty about Bruce that we didn’t know before.

The Boss’ artistic vision, his integrity, his need to give and receive love, the demons he’s had to battle since childhood… they’re all laid bare on the big screen.

You really feel like you’re in the bedroom with Springsteen as he gives birth, painfully at times, to his acoustic masterpiece – and can smell the beer ‘n’ sweat as he rips it up in the legendary Stone Pony dive bar.

As well as documenting 1981/’82’s turbulent events, black and white flashbacks explore the young Bruce’s relationships with his drunken and physically abusive father, Douglas, and his mother, Adele, who did her best to protect her only son.

Mathew Pellicano Jr seriously impresses in his first feature-length role with Stephen Graham and Gaby Hoffman (quelle surprise!) pitch perfect as his parents.

In addition to him recording Nebraska on a portastudio in his Colts Neck, New Jersey bolthole, we also get to see The Boss embarking on a torrid love affair with diner waitress Faye who’s played with supreme nuance by Odessa Young. She’s a composite character but indicative of how Bruce was emotionally flailing around at the time. The onscreen chemistry between the Australian actor and White is electric.

No mere hagiography, the film doesn’t shy away from how shoddily Bruce treats Faye and her young daughter, Hayley, who’s played by another star-in-the-making, Vienna Barrus.

Deliver Me From Nowhere also shows Bruce’s visceral reaction to watching The Night Of The Hunter and Badlands, Charles Laughton and Terence Malick’s respective murderous 1955 and 1973 masterpieces, which impacted hugely on the making of Nebraska.

Elsewhere, we get to witness the depth and symbiotic nature of Bruce’s relationship with his manager Jon Landau, who was the first to recognise how badly his charge’s mental health had deteriorated; how royally pissed off his record company were when instead of a radio-friendly unit shifter he presented them with a bunch of lo-fi bedroom songs; and how eerily White sounds like The Boss when he’s both talking and singing.

In perhaps Deliver Me From Nowhere’s most poignant moment, the adult Bruce makes peace with his dad in the dressing-room after an all guitars blazing stadium gig.

Needless to say, it had me bawling like a baby.

A rock ‘n’ roll fly on the wall, love story and buddy movie all rolled into one, it sets a high bar for the other Bruce biopics that are apparently set to follow.

• In cinemas now. Watch the trailer below: