Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere Review | An Artist’s Struggles With Art And Depression

The theatre went abuzz with the soft chants of “Bruuuuce” “Bruuuuce” “Bruuuuce” as Bruce Springsteen entered the UK premiere of Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere at the BFI London Film Festival. People across ages were waiting—some for the two Jeremys, but most for him. Not being a Springsteen fan, I was unfamiliar with his music, his persona, his stardom, and his struggles. But as he sat down in the audience to watch the film with us, the older gentleman on my left giddly teared up, while the elderly woman on my right loudly yelped and cried. Bruce and Springsteen meant a lot to them.

Directed by Scott Cooper, Springsteen is set in a pocket of the musician’s life and tells us about the making of the 1982 album Nebraska. Played by Jeremy Allen White (The Bear, 2022, Shameless, 2011), Bruce is now a global star, struggling with knowing his life and self off the stage. With no induction or warning, the film dives (and reins us) into his deep struggles with ‘something’ that nobody can name. This should’ve been jarring for someone like me, who knows only the name and not much else of the singer, but it wasn’t. I wasn’t clouded by reality and could watch it as a fictional piece—discovering him as he discovered himself.

The film splices into his childhood with black and white snippets now and then, juxtaposed with his adult life. It’s clear that his childhood was marred by an angry and abusive father (Stephen Graham), who perhaps suffers from ‘something’ too. In one of the snippets, Bruce hits his father with a baseball bat in an attempt to protect his mother. Not an easy childhood by any means, we’re scared for the child as we’re scared for the 32-year-old man afraid to leave behind where he comes from. He seems almost guilty as he grapples with what has passed, resigned to forgive his father but not knowing how to.

As this weighs him down, something deeper inside him calls for more. Music, which was so far a vessel for his expression, desires more from the creator. While moving backward in memories and away from the loud quiet, he seeks for a nostalgic time in creation—away from new equipment to make space for the vulnerable; allowing a hidden rawness to emerge that’s not impacted by perfect numbers and the ideas of perfection by others; freeing the artist to “feel like I’m in the room by myself.”

An album emerges through him, but also despite him. An album emerges against the wishes of the record company. An album emerges thanks to Bruce’s manager and companion, Jon Landau, played by Succession’s (2018) Jeremy Strong. Jon is not merely a reliant wall, but a restful embankment for Bruce as he struggles with depression, the unnamed melancholy he can’t explain, but knows “runs in my blood…I’m poisoned.” This becomes the crux of the film—making music while struggling to understand one’s life and illness and coming through against all odds. 

Instead of being a counter-voice of reason, which is how artist-manager relationships usually go, Jon is only concerned with recognising and realising Bruce’s wishes, even when he doesn’t fully agree with them. He embodies the reclamation of what “reason” can mean—being true to the artist’s courageous soul and not the mechanics dictating preferred, obvious steps for furthering success. Rather than justifying his artistic choices, Jon is present to ensure the album releases precisely as desired, running an office that believes in Springsteen. To an unorthodox career move with “no singles, no tour, no press” and a departure from conventional success, Jon’s words and action respond: “We’ll get it, whatever it takes.”

Wishing to let the album breathe in its raw, unfinished, echo-ey imperfections, Bruce makes a slight shift from rock to folk music, reminding me of the contrast in A Complete Unknown (2024), where Boy Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) tries to make folk rock. Both White and Chalamet have lent their voices to the songs in their respective films, not imitating the artists, but trying to become them. This brings us to the most essential ingredient that makes this film work—the inherent sadness, emotional woundedness and intense pain that White carries in his eyes and face. This is complimented by Strong’s sensitive portrayal of Jon Landau, the steady hand and architect of Bruce’s life from behind-the-scenes. The two Jeremys make the movie worthwhile. Personally, the sad one steals the show. 

However, despite strong performances, the movie ends up being only decent—perhaps working well for Springsteen fans, but not so much for others. It’s hinted that Bruce receives help, but we never see it in action. The cutaways into Jon’s home, discussing Bruce with his wife, feel forced and unnecessary. Odessa Young as Faye (Bruce’s love interest in the film) is surprisingly good, but serves only as the quintessential female body representatively housing unfinished loves that the artist must leave behind in search for something bigger. Her role can be reduced to a mouthpiece, present to finally deliver one line: “Stop running away from everything that scares you. Deal with it, face your shit.”

In quiet moments and shared silences, Jon recognises Bruce’s illness for what it is. After a vulnerable confession of not being able to outrun his troubles, Jon breaks the threshold of embankment as he says, “I’m not equipped to deal with this. You need professional help.” On the red carpet, Jeremy Strong said that for the real Jon Landau, the criterion for art in rock music is the ability of the artist to create a personal, almost private universe and to express it fully, as if to say: music is the answer. However, here, the film recognises that music can be a healing process, heeding one’s deepest fears; but it cannot solve everything. Professional help is essential. Art is not enough, even for artists. This is especially true for Bruce, who continued to struggle with depression, but has successfully made it through.

Guilt, confession, forgiveness and personal justice are keynotes in the film, much like the ideas in Nebraska. Bruce struggles with forgiving his father—not only as an adult, but also as the child who suffered his wrath. Near the final moments, some repose is found in an uncomfortable but seemingly essential interaction where Bruce sits on his father’s lap (for the first time in his life at the adult age of 32), where mistakes are acknowledged and forgiveness is granted, with recognition that perhaps his father suffered the same way he did.  

The film succeeds in placing the audience inside the artist’s life away from the spotlight. What happens between albums, what happens when one faces their mental illness and depression so fiercely? In this story, they come out the other side with some knowledge gained, some greater sense of self and storytelling knowing that “nothing outside can give you any place, in yourself is the only place you got.”