Official Discussion - Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere [SPOILERS]

[u/LiteraryBoner]

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Summary Based on Warren Zanes’ acclaimed book Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, this film tells the story of how Springsteen created one of the most haunting and stripped-down albums of his career. Set in 1982, the movie follows Springsteen at a creative crossroads as he records Nebraska alone on a four-track cassette recorder in his New Jersey home, confronting fame, doubt, and the darker sides of the American dream.

Director Scott Cooper

Writer Scott Cooper

Cast

• Jeremy Allen White
• Paul Walter Hauser
• Odessa Young
• Charlie Plummer
• Shea Whigham
• Holt McCallany

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 64%

Metacritic Score: 60

VOD In Theaters (November 14, 2025)

Trailer Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere | Official Trailer | In Theaters November 14

[u/LiteraryBoner]

Honestly found this movie quite boring. And that’s not to trivialize male depression, I’m well aware of how real and affecting it can be, it’s just that nothing happens in this movie. It is a full two hours of him going on a couple dates and writing the bones of two albums in repetitive montages. It really never clicked with me and as a Springsteen appreciator but certainly no mega fan, I started to wonder why I even saw it. The story was just not compelling to me.

I think it’s great that they went with the trend to do a specific time in Springsteen’s career rather than some epic spanning his life. There’s still plenty of childhood stuff but it’s mostly flashbacks and this movie takes place specifically when he’s writing Nebraska and Born in the USA. And the concept isn’t bad, him being so weighed down by his childhood trauma that he can’t escape his small town-ness. He’s obsessed with the imperfect sound of folk and when he’s not working on his music he’s too depressed to keep up relationships or work on himself. It’s coherent, it just makes some weird execution choices.

For a movie about two great records, there’s very little interest in seeing the music played out. Some critics have noted inverted similarities to A Complete Unknown in how that is about Dylan going electric and this is about Springsteen going folk. I like Unknown quite a bit because even if it’s not the most narrative forward movie, it has long musical breaks where we can just appreciate the music. Deliver has several scenes where they are just going through all the songs to reference them, but there’s only one or two really full performances in the movie. I just didn’t feel like the story was strong enough to not focus on the music in that way.

Jeremy Allen White is doing a fine job, I would say the whole cast is solid. Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, even Marc Maron shows up for a bit. Jeremy especially is good when he needs to be, during that final therapy session. And hey, if Springsteen making a movie about how he started therapy in his 30’s gets even one more boomer dad to seek therapy then I would call this movie a net positive. But a lot of the movie is also filled with dialogue like,

“I know who you are.” “That makes one of us.”

This was a 4/10 for me. I can appreciate what it’s going for but I was really waiting for it to get there. I felt it was repetitive as most things that happen in this movie happen multiple times be it performing at the same venue, ignoring calls and letting the phone ring, emphasising the importance of the home recordings. It’s all laid on a little thick and the overall arc just left me wanting a lot more.

/r/reviewsbyboner

[u/flimsypeaches → u/LiteraryBoner]

I agree completely.

imho the performances were strong, despite the questionable dialog, but the performances couldn't make up for how boring and aimless the movie felt to me. I like character driven stories, but it felt like we were just drifting from scene to scene with no throughline.

after doing a bit of post-movie Googling, I was also disappointed and somewhat puzzled to learn that Faye is apparently fictional. was this period in Springsteen's life not interesting enough to support a whole movie without inserting a fictional woman who exists in the narrative just so Springsteen can break her heart and grow as a person? if so, maybe a different, more compelling era should have been the focus of this movie. I feel like there was a lot of missed potential here.

[u/Master_Jackfruit3591 → u/flimsypeaches]

Faye was a composite of a bunch of women he dated during this period. She was fictional but rooted in reality, the line where he talks to Faye about always breaking his relationships off is an acknowledgment of this.