October 31, 2025 – Bruce Springsteen, the enormously successful rocker, famous for his emotionally powerful lyrics and voice, is laid bare in this musical biopic about creating his very personal 1982 Nebraska album.

The movie follows Springsteen (played by Jeremy Allen White of “The Iron Claw”) in 1981-1982, for the most part, as he works on the album, with a few scenes set in earlier and later times. According to a fact-check review by Rolling Stone magazine, this “movie sticks remarkably close to the historic record,” with the exception of a composite character, Faye Romano (played by Odessa Young of “The Order”).

Springsteen and Romano have a romantic relationship in the movie, but it appears that Springsteen's closest relationship in this story, aside from his mother, Adele (Gaby Hoffmann of “Wild”) seems to be with his manager and producer Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong of “The Apprentice”). Landau has the difficult job of negotiating with both Springsteen and record executive Al Teller (David Krumholtz of “Oppenheimer”) who both want very different things.

Springsteen has written some sure-fire hit songs, like “Born in the USA,” but he wants to put out his Nebraska album without a hit single, consisting of acoustic folk music-like arrangements recorded on a cassette recorder. Furthermore, he doesn't want to do a tour to promote the album, and wants no publicity campaign either. Most people could not get away with this, but the guy who wrote “Born to Run”can. One of the best scenes in the movie has Landau laying out Springsteen's conditions for the Nebraska release in “take it or leave it” terms to an unhappy Teller.

The movie portrays Springsteen's creative process on Nebraska as a form of emotional therapy, followed by some actual therapy. Movies are a part of this. Springsteen, as a child (played by Matthew Anthony Pellicano Jr.) is taken by his emotionally disturbed father, Douglas (Stephen Graham of “Blitz”) to a very creepy movie, “Night of the Hunter” (1955). In this movie Robert Mitchum stars as a scary psychopath, who can also be charming. See this movie if you dare. Another movie that inspired Springsteen is about a famous serial killer, Charles Starkweather, depicted in the movie “Badlands” (1973) by actor Martin Sheen.

While working on the Nebraska album, Springsteen receives a call from his desperate mother because his father has disappeared. She is afraid he is off his meds. He goes to Los Angeles to find him, and locates Douglas in a bar. I would have thought that Springsteen would be worried about inheriting his father's mental illnesses, but I did not see a reference to that in the movie. Nonetheless, Springsteen is shown struggling with depression.

This movie is not just blessed with great music, but also great acting. While Jeremy Allen White is not nearly as handsome as Springsteen, his acting chops are outstanding (he also did his own vocals on the songs in the movie) and the entire cast is up to that level as well. This movie showed me a side of Springsteen I did not know, but then I knew little about his life before this. I was familiar with the songs in the movie, but did not know anything about the less well known songs on the Nebraska album, or how the album was made. This was all new territory for me.

I get the idea from reading the news that there are people who don't like the Nebraska album, and maybe a lot of people wanted this movie to be like a greatest hits concert movie, but that's not what it is. Instead, it is a look into Springsteen's soul, through the window of one specific year of his life and the songs he wrote for this album. It is also a movie that highlights Springsteen's artistic process. This movie succeeds in both these goals. It rates a B.

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