During my most recent trip to the movie theater, I watched a biographical picture called Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, about Bruce Springsteen’s life and process while writing his 1982 album Nebraska. Often considered one of Springsteen’s best projects, Nebraska is renowned for its dark, lonely, almost haunting sound. It is so unique that, during its recording process, Columbia Records (Springsteen’s label) had to develop a new way to etch his album onto vinyl records. Nebraska was recorded in the bedroom of a rental house in New Jersey.
I thought I knew enough about Bruce Springsteen in order to understand the context and time period of this movie, and therefore did not do any research beforehand in an attempt not to encounter spoilers. However, I was wrong. Turns out a teenager growing up in 2025 doesn’t know anything about the 1980s. Now, after much consideration and further research, I am writing this article to aid in the age-old problem of teenagers thinking they know everything.
Spoiler-Free Synopsis
At the movie’s opening, we encounter Bruce Springsteen at the conclusion of his “The River” Tour in 1981, promoting the chart-topping album of the same name, which sought to capture the live sound of the E Street Band. Springsteen, played by Jeremy Allen White, returns to his hometown of Freehold Borough in New Jersey. He struggles with the adjustment to life at home after being out on tour and begins reliving his childhood memories of growing up in an impoverished, abusive household in a factory town soon to lose its industrial base. Springsteen copes with these memories by writing deeply emotional songs inspired by the darkness both in his own experiences and in the world at large. Bruce and his engineer, Mike Batlan, record demos in Springsteen’s rental lake house on a then state-of-the-art, four-track cassette recorder. Springsteen loves the sound of the demos, and thinks they express the feeling of being alone with the listener in a room. After Springsteen finishes the demos, he has to make the tough decision of whether or not to re-record the music in a sound studio, which would make them sound glossier and more produced, or use the cassette recording on his new album, titled Nebraska after its leadoff track. Moreover, he also has to deal with the fact that all of his production staff prefer the other half of his recordings that were shelved and not included on Nebraska.
[SPOILER ALERT!]
The shelved songs would later be added to another iconic Springsteen album: Born in the USA. How cool is that?
Review
You might be thinking to yourself, “Linus, this is the one time we care about your opinion. Should I see the movie or not?”
Well, since you asked . . . I loved this movie! Why else would I write an article about it? [Ed. Note—Because you said you would?] I personally think this movie does a good job of making the viewer feel connected to the story and experience its emotional resonance. Director Scott Cooper’s style of sharing Springsteen’s childhood memories, while the grown man relives them, is fascinating. It makes the viewer feel like we know what Springsteen is experiencing as he struggles to write this album, and how the darkness in his life in turn becomes part of the songs on Nebraska. I admit I did not have high expectations for this movie, but my expectations were, without a doubt, exceeded.
If I could give this movie a score out of ten (ten being the best movie I have ever seen, which by the way is Knives Out, and one being unwatchable, which is Goosebumps, in my opinion, because absolutely no one likes a ventriloquist’s dummy) I would give this movie an eight. By no means is it the best movie I have seen this year, but I didn’t waste a Friday afternoon by going to see it. In case you are wondering, the best movie I have seen this year, Highest 2 Lowest, is currently streaming on Apple TV.
Returning from this tangent, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is currently available in theaters and expected to start streaming on Disney+ and Hulu in early 2026.
