There is only one joke to be made about Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, and I think it is the one thing keeping it from being more highly praised by critics.  Basically, the film is “Making an Album: The Movie.”  If you are a fan of Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White), then this personal glimpse into the famous rock star’s life is a gem.  For others, it might come off as slow.  What excited this Catholic reviewer was seeing the connections to in Bruce’s life to Catholicism.  For example, his love interest, Faye Romano (Odessa Young), gives him a St. Christopher medallion to wear around his neck.  It also appears that his boyhood (Matthew Anthony Pellicano) home is next to a Catholic church.  The question then becomes: does this match with reality?  In a non-religious sense, there have been those that point out that White does not resemble Springsteen in looks.  From a Faith perspective, there is also little to go by.  Springsteen is one of a host of lapsed Catholics worldwide.  Still, he did admit to realizing that once someone is Catholic, they are always Catholic, saying, “I don’t participate in my religion but I know somewhere . . . deep inside . . . I’m still on the team.”  That is worth something, as is this movie.

For Bruce’s mother, Adele Springsteen (Gabby Hoffman), her young son’s worth at the beginning of Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is in trying to get her husband and Bruce’s father, Douglas Springsteen (Stephen Graham), out of the bar.  It is the first of several flashbacks sprinkled throughout the film that speak to the evolving relationship between Bruce and Douglas, which is fraught with violence and mental health issues.  For the moment, we fast forward to the 1980s with Bruce completing a concert.  As he sits alone in the dressing room, he is visited by his friend and manager, Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong).  The shows take a toll on Bruce, and Jon is evidently concerned.  As such, Jon does not push the inevitable need for a follow-up to Bruce’s success.  Instead, Jon informs Bruce of all the arrangements made for the rock star to stay in a house in New Jersey in order to have time on his own to write music.  Once Bruce is dropped off, he tries to settle into his new surroundings, but finds his restlessness too much to bear.  Hence, he heads for the Stone Pony, a nearby bar and club where he plays with a local band.  After the concert, he is approached by an old friend from high school who introduces Bruce to Faye.  Initially, Bruce claims to already be involved with someone, but it is evident that all he does is stay at home with his thoughts.  His musings often take him back to the difficult times with his father, triggered when he drives past his old home.  It is while watching an old movie on television that he begins to get the inspiration for his next creative project.  This leads to a call to Mike Batlan (Paul Walter Hauser), Bruce’s sound engineer, for some specialized equipment to begin recording from home.  By “specialized,” I mean basic machines that will sound amateur to a professional ear, but Bruce prefers because he wishes to have the raw sound of his bedroom studio.  A further inspiration is deciding to take up a relationship with Faye.  For a while, they spend a lot of time together, including with her young daughter.  Though she knows it is probably a bad idea to get involved with a celebrity like him, she begins to fall in love.  It is good for him, too, until it is not, with him later telling her that he is unable to be the person she wishes him to be.  He also has other issues to face.  One night, he gets a call from Adele saying that Douglas has gone missing from their Los Angeles home.  As when he was a child, Bruce finds his dad in a bar and is able to convince Douglas to go to the hospital and resume medication.  Another point of contention is his next album.  While Jon is always patient with him, Al Teller (David Krumholtz), the executive for the record label, desires something even bigger than his last production.  To this end, Bruce enters the studio with his E Street Band and lays down arguably his most famous song, “Born in the U.S.A.”  Everyone is pleased, including Jon, but it is Bruce’s more acoustic work that he wants to get right.  To some, it becomes an obsession.  The producer, Chuck Plotkin (Marc Maron), attempts a variety of methods to get the sound from Bruce’s cassette tape recording onto vinyl, but it always comes out distorted.  Further, Bruce is asking that an entire album of songs such as this one be released, without his face on the cover, and no publicity or tour.  It is madness to Al, but Jon remains adamant that Bruce be given this courtesy.  Before the end credits roll, we learn that Bruce is right, with the record going to number three on the charts despite the lack of fanfare.  It appears that everything is going right for Bruce, and he decides to move to Los Angeles.  In explaining this to Faye, she accuses him of running from his problems, but he claims that he will only end up hurting her.  As he travels cross country with his friend, Matt Delia (Harrison Gilbertson), Bruce slowly realizes that she is right.  Bruce has a nervous breakdown along the way.  Shortly after getting to his new house, he talks to Jon, who suggests that the rock star see a therapist.  In Bruce’s first session, upon being asked how he is, he answers with sobbing.  We then cut to ten months later and Bruce is back on the stage, to Jon’s clear joy.  After the performance, Bruce finds his parents backstage.  Alone in the dressing room is Douglas, who asks Bruce to sit on his father’s lap.  The final scene is of them reconciling, with Bruce telling his dad that Douglas did the best he could.

The moral of Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is that Bruce did the best he could with the circumstances into which he was born.  That is all God asks of us, so why should we be any different in terms of our expectations of others?  It is precisely because so many do not try to do the best they can that is frustrating.  What is less frustrating is how the film handles these issues.  So many of us on so many occasions miss the mark in terms of using the gifts God gave us to their fullest potential.  It is something I pray and think about often in terms of my own endeavors.  Am I reaching enough people with The Legionnaire?  I am giving those I do reach an authentic and prayerful Catholic interpretation of films?  It is that authenticity that seems to be Bruce’s driving motivation.  He does not want to be duplicitous and hurt anyone, particularly Faye, so in some respects, he gives up.  This is what Faye points out to him.  It is easier to not try because doing so means we do not have to face some ugly truths.  Maybe my writing is not good enough?  Perhaps God is calling me to another purpose?  There are a few things that need to be recognized in these moments.  First, it is the enemy that wants us to wallow in self-doubt and pity.  This is what Bruce is engaging in for much of the film.  Luckily, God is always waiting for us to lift us out of the muck and mire into which the enemy is trying to drag us.  This may not be what Bruce turns to, despite the indications I discussed in the introduction, but therapy is at least some help.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere also shows us how good it is to have people like Jon in our lives, if for no other reason than he is the one who first suggests therapy.  However, he had something else to say that piqued my Catholic interest.  In spending time with Bruce and noticing his depression, Jon quotes from Wise Blood (1952), by practicing Catholic author Flannery O’Connor.  In it, she wrote, “Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. . . .  In yourself right now is all the place you’ve got.”  The first sentence explains Bruce accurately throughout much of the film.  He is haunted by the past, uncomfortable in his present, and believes his future is not turning out as he would hope.  What he needs to realize is the wisdom of the second sentence, that all he needs is within him already.  For those who do not believe in God, this is a tougher sell.  The stereotype, especially with musicians, is that they fill that perceived void with alcohol and drugs.  I do not know whether the real Springsteen is a drinker, but my research indicated that he never tried drugs.  Rather, what the movie shows is that he is searching.  That is something God imbues in us all.  He created us with a desire to know Him that, sadly, many do not recognize even when they are responding to it.  I say sadly because that restlessness leads them in some unfortunate directions.  The truth is that God is right there inside all of us, and what we are looking for is within us always if we know how to find it.  I wish this had been the conclusion to the movie, but I will take an intimate moment between father and son in lieu of that hope.

As such, do I hope that you see Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere?, if you can stand a slowly paced film.  Outside of this, there is nothing objectionable about it.  There is a sex scene, but it does not reveal anything risqué.  There are some solid performances, too, and the word “solid” is probably the best one for the movie overall.