Jeremy Allen White hits all the expected beats as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere trailer

Deliver Me From Nowhere, based on the book of the same name by Warren Zanes, is about the making of Springsteen’s Nebraska. This period (which also includes the writing of several songs from Born In The U.S.A.) is framed as Springsteen’s dark night of the soul, though his manager Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong) presents it in much more grandiose terms: When Bruce was young he grew up with a hole in the floor of his bedroom, Landau says, and now “Bruce is a repairman. What he’s doing with this album is he’s repairing that hole in the floor. He’s repairing that hole in himself. Once he’s done with that, he’s going to repair the entire world.”

Phew! That’s a tall order for an album. (Strong is undoubtedly well cast as the right-hand man who believes wholeheartedly in his client’s project.) Mythmaking is a key element of the Bruce Springsteen experience, of course—Springsteen does it himself all the time, with his music or in his autobiography—but it comes across a little saccharine when someone else is putting the words in his mouth (“I’m trying to find something real in all the noise”). And speaking of, the Deliver Me To Nowhere trailer literally puts Springsteen’s words in White’s mouth, as in, he’s mostly lip syncing to the songs. He does look great rocking out to “Born To Run,” but White previously said he was doing his own singing, so what gives? Maybe we’ll hear it in the next trailer, or we’ll have to wait for when the film premieres on October 24.  

UPDATE: Upon further listens, it appears that the singing in the trailer is Jeremy Allen White doing an excellent Springsteen impression, so this writer would like to retract her “what gives.” Apologies to White, and congrats to the music production on Deliver Me From Nowhere, which really nailed the E Street Band sound.