Springsteen Movie is Deeply Flawed and Desecrates Terrence Malick's Work
Saw the sneak tonight and had to look up the writer director -- Scott Cooper. It was a mess despite the subject, the music and the potential. Being an autobiography project did not help matters I'm sure.
It felt like a student film with good actors in it. Very on the nose, very linear. The big flaws were no stakes, no opposing force or antagonist that would define the hero and his struggle.
The story centers on Springsteen's decision to pull back for a while and turn his depression and anxieties into music -- the stripped down "Nebraska" album (1982). But we never get a look at what Bruce is pulling back from. We see him playing the Stone Pony and it feels half empty. It doesn't feel like we are starting the story at the point where Bruce is overwhelmed by his own success and that is a fatal flaw from the opening scene.
Midway or more through the film they just tell us, on the nose, that Bruce is suicidal. What should be a powerful and driving dynamic is gutless and unearned and too late to matter. Among his mental health issues is that he didn't feel like he deserved the success and he felt like he had lost himself along the way. That needed to be established in scene 2 -- not 70 minutes into the film. The story of a moody genius musician getting to do whatever he wants in the studio and in life yet still be depressed is not relatable. The potential for a relatable spine was there because most of us have felt like we got more than we deserved or 'imposter syndrome.' If they dove in on that angle early then the film would be a journey of Springsteen trying to deal with it. Instead it all just kind of happens. He presses record and lays down 'Atlantic City'. Three scenes later another song just pops out of nowhere.
The film features clips from the movies "Night of the Hunter" (1955) and "Badlands" (1973) and clearly Springsteen was moved by Terence Malick's films. My problem is Springsteen and Cooper rip off the structure, some shots and an entire scene from Malick's existential masterpiece "Tree of Life" (2012)! They do so without anything that makes that film work -- the high level cinematography, the way the score is integrated, the wordless and poetic scenes. Likely Malick had to give permission for the use of Badlands. If so, he should not have.
Jeremy Allen White, best known for "The Bear", is effective and gives the performance they wanted but the script and story is too internal and flat. Jeremy Strong, of 'The Big Short' and 'Succession', plays Bruce's manager, a calming and patient character and that is a good fit for Strong but he has nothing to calm because nothing happens. There are no highs and lows. It's just Bruce is moody and then shazzam great song comes out. The girlfriend is good but likewise has nothing to work with and her B-story never feels real. You don't feel that much is between them. Despite dating a rock star who has 5 hit albums and 12 hit singles, she retains her job as a server in a diner and takes her child to work with her. Again there is no sense that Bruce is living in two worlds at once -- we don't see him in the successful rock star world, only in a mode of rekindling a kind of blue collar Jersey shore childhood.
My expectations were low going in but I was surprised by how flat it was and I was very surprised that they butchered 'Tree of Life.' The kid they cast to play young Springsteen looks more like the actor in Tree of Life than like Springsteen. Malick shot his whole film with only natural light, unscripted performances by the kids and Brad Pitt, blocked off a whole neighborhood so they could shoot handheld and follow the improvisation wherever it went. Cooper and Springsteen loved this scene from Tree of Life and stuck their version of it into DMFN. It was criminal and ill advised.
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