“Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” a biopic centered on rockstar Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska” era before he hit mega stardom with “Born in the U.S.A.,” landed in cinemas this past October to disinterested critics and distracted crowds. The main streets were “bored” by the film and felt “aimlessly” placed on an empty New Jersey road through Springsteen’s hometown.
However, any great artist knows that the deepest art lies in the backstreets of the mind. It cannot be summoned by traveling only on sunlit roads, and it cannot be manifested by those who refuse to traverse the darkness at the edge of town. When an artist’s most profound truth comes out — just as when the critics first received “Nebraska” in 1982, Springsteen’s most brutally honest album — it’s quiet at first, though not without resonance.
The Oscar buzz for Jeremy Allen White, who plays Springsteen in “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” has been quiet amid the loud acclaim for other actors, namely Timothée Chalamet (“Marty Supreme”), Leonardo DiCaprio (“One Battle After Another”), Ethan Hawke (“Blue Moon”), Michael B. Jordan (“Sinners”), and Wagner Moura (“The Secret Agent”). Admittedly, audiences and academy voters are fatigued by the musical biopic, skeptical of the lack of originality, respect, and actors’ resemblance to the legends they are playing. Moreover, critics claim that Bruce Springsteen is a “boring” artist, so the actor had little to work with besides Springsteen’s idiosyncratic musculature and raspy growl.
Springsteen was a difficult role to simply mimic, though. The former “Shameless” star does not look like the rock artist, nor did he sing or play guitar before the film — and yes, that’s all his own singing. “The Boss” also never turned to drugs or alcohol in his fight against depression. White fearlessly took on this clean role, highlighting a melancholy that is deceivingly difficult to convey without a highness or drunkenness that often characterizes 20th-century artists’ rises to fame.
Instead of plain mimicry, White portrayed a version of the singer-songwriter that is completely true to the star yet entirely unique to himself. Springsteen actually handpicked White in the casting process after seeing his hit show “The Bear” because “the way he carried himself” was distinct from others yet similar to his own impulse to share deeper human truths with the world. In the film, White does not disappoint: The actor masterfully mixes Springsteen’s artistic passion with his signature fierceness in protecting what his character loves. In this case, it was Springsteen’s musical sincerity and the memory of his childhood, not Carmy’s culinary talent and the memory of his brother. He skillfully embodies walking the thin line between memory and reality.
White’s performance is an ode to the loneliness before an artist’s breakthrough, which should be celebrated at the Academy Awards. The ceremony itself is a beautiful gathering of artistic minds who have surmounted the odds to get to the top. Current predictions, though, place Chalamet’s performance in “Marty Supreme” at the top of the roster. And perhaps Josh Safdie’s dramatic biopic is right: Marty Mauser’s arrogance and ostentatiousness are louder than Springsteen and White’s nuance and pensiveness. Don’t get me wrong: Chalamet deserves his praise, but White’s portrayal of the struggling artist is worthy of just as much acclaim, if not more. Loudness does not necessarily mean brilliance.
White’s chances of winning the golden statuette could be dead. But as “The Boss” sings in the reflective ballad “Atlantic City,” “maybe everything that dies someday comes back.” The 34-year-old delivers the performance of a lifetime as a 1980s Springsteen lost in quiet loneliness and depression, sorting out life through the creation of his distressing album “Nebraska.” With his stakes in the 2026 Oscar race being, at present, little-known, he personifies the album’s trajectory as a dark horse himself. Even though he dances in the dark this awards season, White showcases an overlooked potential that will inevitably set the field on fire in the years to come.
