The trailer for Deliver Me From Nowhere has finally dropped. There has been some mystery as to what the movie would be about but now we know. It is about that time Bruce Springsteen made the album Nebraska to “heal himself” so he could “heal the world.”
Jeremy Allen White plays The Boss:
Springsteen’s gift, like Dylan’s gift, is the music. I find the stories of their real lives — whether it’s Dylan or Springsteen, or Joni Mitchell or anyone else, is less interesting than just putting on one of their records — or I suppose stream it on Spotify or Apple Music. Nothing like the first few bars of a Springsteen song, and back in the day, before it all got so political, there was nothing like a Springsteen concert. I went to many of them.
This was me in high school, in case you doubt my bonafides:
It is not true that Springsteen fans flipped out when he made Nebraska. It wasn’t a “going electric” moment. We all loved that album as much as we loved Darkness on the Edge of Town (still my favorite), Born to Run, The River, Greetings from Asbury Park. Early Bruce is the best Bruce and there is no denying it. But some of his later stuff is pretty good too.
This is the last gasp of the baby boomer era, which is why we’re seeing so many tributes and farewells for Bruce and for Bob Dylan, and films by Francis Ford Coppola and Bob Zemeckis, etc. They were quite the generation. They built American culture out of the the 1960s and 1970s. Culture that has now given itself over to a dogmatic ideology of which Springsteen is very much a part.
Springsteen, like Bob Dylan, didn’t want to stagnate as an artist but wanted to explore and expand as a storyteller and musician. For instance, Dancing in the Dark was a pop song, which people complained about. The Ghost of Tom Joad was an acoustic folks album, which some complained about. His fans mostly kept up with him but there were plenty who wanted him to always be the “Born to Run” guy. He left that guy behind (while still playing that song at concerts because his fans love it).
As Springsteen’s career evolved, like so many of the artists in Hollywood and in music, his audience kept getting richer, more educated and more elite. His fans stuck with him for most of it, but there is no denying the biggest departure for them was his singular hatred for Donald Trump – something that has boosted his profile on the Left this year, and explains why this film will do well in the Oscar race. But it also is a warning of what the coverage will be like as we head into Oscar season. The speeches, my god, the speeches.
Anyway, we’ll survive it. We always do.
As with the Kathryn Bigelow movie, the late October date means the film likely heads to Telluride or the fall festivals for a soft landing. Imagine Bruce Springsteen showing up in the mountains of Telluride with all of the bloggers in hot pursuit. We could fuel an entire city on the enthusiasm that would produce. There was definitely a time when I would be among them, but alas, not anymore. I soured on Telluride last year, and I’ve already seen the Bruce I prefer to remember, on stage, doing what he does best.
So I will view this film with some skepticism in its telling of the Bruce Springsteen story. But there is no question that this is a bravura turn for Jeremy Allen White. I think he could win the Oscar for it, as I’ve already been predicting.
From 20th Century Studios, “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” chronicles the making of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 “Nebraska” album when he was a young musician on the cusp of global superstardom, struggling to reconcile the pressures of success with the ghosts of his past. Recorded on a 4-track recorder in Springsteen’s New Jersey bedroom, the album marked a pivotal time in his life and is considered one of his most enduring works—a raw, haunted acoustic record populated by lost souls searching for a reason to believe.
Starring Jeremy Allen White as the Boss, the film is Written for the Screen and Directed by Scott Cooper based on the book “Deliver Me from Nowhere” by Warren Zanes. “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” also features Jeremy Strong as Springsteen’s long-time confidant and manager, Jon Landau; Paul Walter Hauser as guitar tech Mike Batlan; Stephen Graham as Springsteen’s father, Doug, Odessa Young as love interest, Faye; Gaby Hoffman as Springsteen’s mom, Adele; Marc Maron as Chuck Plotkin and David Krumholtz as Columbia executive, Al Teller. Arriving only in theaters October 24, 2025, the film is produced by Cooper, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Eric Robinson and Scott Stuber. Tracey Landon Jon Vein, and Zanes executive produce.
