Bruce Springsteen is the latest to join the growing list of music legends getting the biopic treatment with Deliver Me From Nowhere (out October), starring The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White. The trailer dropped June 18, showing White stepping into Springsteen’s boots during the raw, more uncertain years after Born to Run, the era when heartland rock was still figuring itself out and the weight of expectation hadn’t yet dulled its edges.
The clip opens with a quiet moment. White’s Springsteen is at a car dealership, and the salesman gives him a line straight out of a barroom gospel: “It’s awful fitting for a handsome devil rockstar. I do know who you are.” White as Springsteen shrugs, almost sheepishly: “Well, that makes one of us.” The exchange sets the tone for what follows. Not the glamor, not the fanfare, just the interiority of a man trying to figure out if he’s got anything left to say.
The film tracks Springsteen’s doubts during the early ‘80s, retreating into New Jersey solitude to record Nebraska, the spare and haunted acoustic record that remains one of the boldest pivots in his catalog. Paul Walter Hauser plays Mike Batlan, the recording engineer who helps Springsteen shape the album from the ground up. “Don’t need to be perfect,” Springsteen says. “I want it to feel like I’m in the room by myself.”
The trend of music biopics hasn’t slowed down since the 2000s brought Ray and Walk the Line to the mainstream. More recent entries like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman have doubled down on spectacle and fan service. Last year, The Complete Unknown saw Timothée Chalamet take on Bob Dylan’s mythos, earning him a Best Actor nod from the Academy. But Deliver Me From Nowhere feels more stripped of illusion, willing to skip the stadium lights and get closer to the man behind the music.
Deliver Me From Nowhere premieres in theaters globally on October 24.
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