Can a biopic of the Boss be anything other than blinded by his light?

Heavens above, not another biopic. I'm still in recovery from A Complete Unknown, James Mangold’s attempted unveiling of The Mysterious Soul of Bob Dylan starring Timothy Someone-or-other.

- Erica Wagner

Enlightening to learn that the Bobster was a Bad Boyfriend, huh? Now here comes Scott Cooper’s authorised Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, starring The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White in brown contact lenses.

Anything with the imprimatur of an artist or estate is bound to be tediously hagiographic; even more problematic is the impossibility of capturing the wildness of the creative spark. Remember the stunning moment in Peter Jackson’s Beatles documentary when Paul McCartney comes up with Get Back? The astonishment is in the accidental nature of the scene. This is as close as we can get to seeing the real thing because it is, well, the real thing.

Biopics can flourish when the lives featured are not those of the so-called great and good. I'm keen to see I Swear, Kirk Jones’s feature based on the life of John Davidson, a campaigner for Tourette's. I loved Philomena, Stephen Frears’s 2013 film based on Martin Sixsmith’s book. We can’t think we know the characters in these films: and so we, and the filmmakers, can let them be themselves.