‘Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere’ is a lackluster addition to the tired biopic subgenre

The release of Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, the only musical biopic of 2025, marks seven consecutive years of at least one major studio release of the subgenre (excluding 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Director Scott Cooper’s addition to the category doesn’t do much to justify the need to continue the streak despite not being a conventional cradle-to-grave biopic.

Deliver Me from Nowhere follows a specific period in Bruce Springsteen’s life when the rock artist was somewhat famous, but not globally renowned; he’s already a couple of albums into his career, but hadn’t produced Born in the U.S.A. yet.

While the film certainly gives a few nods to his best-selling album, the story centers around the production of his 1982 album Nebraska. Springsteen’s production of Nebraska comes as the artist grapples with increasing fame in the midst of an individual struggle from a haunted past and difficulty leaving his home. The rockstar is constantly juggling demand for a ‘hit’ album, his desire to tell his personal story, unresolved trauma from his past and a romance that gradually grows distant.

Even though Deliver Me from Nowhere wasn’t a traditional biopic, Cooper’s different narrative approach doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel for biopics. All it does is make the film less appealing for wider audiences.

Most biopics don’t zero in on a specific period in one’s life and often track the entirety of one’s career/life. It’s an appreciated effort to try something new after years of formulated stories of renowned musicians, but focusing on Springsteen’s time in making Nebraska, Cooper inadvertently carves out a film that only Springsteen superfans can truly enjoy.

The average moviegoer who may only know Springsteen’s hit song “Born in the U.S.A.” might not understand why Nebraska is such an important album to ‘The Boss.’ The film is insufficient in showing how Springsteen’s troubled past leads to his pursuit of Nebraska and how it’s also conflicting with his rising fame.

Starting with Springsteen’s childhood, the film portrays his hostile relationship with his father, who supposedly serves as the catalyst for the singer’s unresolved past. Doug Springsteen (Bruce’s father) is depicted as a bogged-down working-class man who heavily drinks, constantly argues with Adele Springsteen (Bruce’s mother/Doug’s wife) and is not afraid to get physical with young Bruce. It’s a very sobering situation, yet Cooper fails to connect how these moments fostered Springsteen’s inspiration for Nebraska over chasing hits like Born in the U.S.A. 

Glimpses of his past are delivered through flashbacks that feel sporadic with no coherence or connection as to how or why his past leads him to write songs such as “Atlantic City.”

The flashbacks serve as a checklist in telling the true things that occurred in Springsteen’s life rather than how those events relate to his call to action. One flashback features young Springsteen playing in the cornfields with his sister while their father watches from a distance. However, the sister never appears in the film again and contrasts with the framing earlier in the film, portraying Springsteen as an only child.

Each flashback in the film features Bruce as the only child present in the household. The flashback with his sister only serves to show an affinity Springsteen has for a run-down house from his past. It has no connection to developing Nebraska and only shows Springsteen isn’t eager to leave home.

This ties into the biggest flaw with the film: it does a poor job of showing, then decides to just explain itself to compensate for its lack of display. Several scenes show Springsteen watching old shows/movies or staring at a notepad before writing the songs to the album, despite little connection to how he arrived at the songs. It created an area of confusion for a Springsteen novice who may not understand how spree killer Charles Starkweather relates to him wanting to create a personal album to deal with unresolved trauma from his past before he goes big-time. It’s the film’s job to make it clear and coherent, but it failed to do that.

In an attempt to compensate, the film recognizes its shortcomings and tries to explain the point it failed to show. About three-fourths into the movie, there’s a scene where Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) explains to his wife what exactly Bruce is going through and why he is making Nebraska over Born in the U.S.A. It felt like a self-admission from the film that felt the need to explain itself instead of allowing the audience to interpret it through the development of the plot. It’s a shame because the themes the film juggles are rich on face value, but without deliberate execution, they become uninspiring.

The themes of authenticity versus commodification, personal versus commercial and roots versus fame are strong ones to tell. In an increasingly commercialized world where basic necessities such as food are commodified, audiences crave stories of authenticity. Simply telling themes without connecting them to the material leaves the audience underwhelmed. The grand message of the film—choosing the personal over the commercial—falls flat due to the lack of substance the film shows in Springsteen’s journey towards that conclusion.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere ultimately doesn’t stand out as an exceptional biopic despite taking an unconventional route. The subgenre as a whole feels like major studios checking off boxes of which next legendary artist will get a biopic, rather than a genuine desire to tell an interesting story and Deliver Me from Nowhere only reinforces that feeling.