Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | Film | October 27, 2025
I haven’t been this disappointed in a movie in a long time. Deliver Me from Nowhere isn’t terrible, exactly —it’s not even the performances (though I have some issues with Jeremy Allen White’s Springsteen). The problem is that the movie takes a period of Bruce’s life that isn’t cinematic and tries to make it cinematic anyway. It’s an introspective story about an introspective artist, and introspection just isn’t much to look at.
At this point, the musician biopic formula is as worn out as a vinyl record, and I respect that Scott Cooper at least tries to avoid it. But there’s a reason that formula works—and Deliver Me from Nowhere is a case study in why it does. This isn’t a rise-fall-redemption story; it’s about how Springsteen made his 1982 album Nebraska. And I love Nebraska. It’s raw, lonely, and perfect for lying on the floor a few whiskeys deep, letting the darkness hum in your ears.
But for the love of God, it’s not a story that lends itself to a movie. The gist is this: fresh off his first big success, Springsteen holes up in his Colts Neck, New Jersey, bedroom, recording a bunch of moody songs inspired by Flannery O’Connor, his father, Terrence Malick’s Badlands, and Bob Dylan. He records them on a cheap four-track, planning to re-record with the E Street Band later. Then he decides he likes the rough, haunting vibe of the home recordings and wants to turn them into an album. That leads to about 45 minutes of screen time spent in a studio where Bruce stares at tape machines and mutters about “the sound.” “The songs are what matter!” The stakes could not be lower.
Meanwhile, he’s spiraling into depression — understandable, sure, but not exactly thrilling cinema. He stares into space a lot. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke, so there aren’t even any props. He just … broods. We’re told it’s about his complicated relationship with his father (Stephen Graham), but the film never really explains what’s going on inside him. And yes, depression doesn’t always have a reason, but a movie needs one.
There’s also a love interest, Faye Romano (Odessa Young), who seems to exist mostly to fill space. They date, he panics, they break up. It’s disconnected from everything else and doesn’t add much, unless the goal was just to make sure someone smiled at him once.
There are flashes of life, fun little music-nerd trivia, like how ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ was inspired by a screenplay Paul Schrader handed him (Springsteen didn’t read it but stole the title anyway), or how some of his biggest hits (‘Born in the U.S.A.,’ ‘Glory Days’) started as Nebraska leftovers he shelved because he wasn’t chasing commercial success. Those moments are interesting, but they’re not enough to build a movie around.
As for Jeremy Allen White? He’s fine. He’s got some of Bruce’s twitchy mannerisms down, but too often it looks like he’s posing for an album cover instead of living inside a scene. And while he sings most of the songs himself, that almost works against him. If it sounds like Bruce but looks like Jeremy Allen White, it just feels … off. That voice should not be coming out of that mouth! Still, I’ll give him credit for this: He can stare pensively into the middle distance with the best of them.
I love the album. I even appreciate what Cooper was trying to do here. But Deliver Me from Nowhere feels like watching someone write a poem — earnest, quiet, and dramatically inert. There’s no real shape to it — no arc, no structure. I couldn’t tell you what the climax was supposed to be: Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong, doing more of a vibe than a performance) standing up to the record label? Bruce finally seeing a therapist? By the end, I was just relieved when the title card showed up to deliver the big twist: Nebraska hit number three on the charts. And sometimes Bruce still struggles with depression. Relatable, sure, but not exactly the stuff of cinema. He doesn’t even dance with Courteney Cox! What kind of biopic is this?
