SHOW 'EM WHO'S BOSS

JEREMY ALLEN WHITE IS ELECTRIFYING IN COMPELLING BIOPIC OF A MUSIC LEGEND

- REVIEWS BY DAMON SMITH

WRITER-DIRECTOR Scott Cooper shepherded Jeff Bridges to an Oscar with his directorial debut Crazy Heart.

He revisits the Sturm und Drang of the music industry with a biographical drama about Bruce Springsteen, intensely focused on a two-year period when The Boss frustrated his record label by concentrating on a low-fi passion project.

Based on Warren Zanes' book, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere plunges headfirst into the singer's ferocious tussle with anxiety and depression rooted in childhood trauma. Black and white flashbacks to his childhood in New Jersey offer unsettling glimpses at the strained relationship between eight-year-old Bruce (Matthew Anthony Pellicano), his bullying, alcoholic father Dutch (Stephen Graham) and placative mother Adele (Gaby Hoffmann).