This film has most of the features of a biopicture about a musician. There is a bit of the origin story of his music, difficulties with his distant father and loving moments with his mother. Then come the fame and fortune. As it opens, Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White) has just finished his widely popular The River Tour in 1981. He’s exhausted and needs a break. His competent and faithful manager, Jon Landau (Jeremy Strong), has rented him a country house in Colt’s Neck, New Jersey. There in his bedroom on out-dated equipment he records the Nebraska album. A lot of what follows shows him trying to get this acoustic music released just as he wants it – with the same sound as the demo. He tells Landau he will do no tour and no press. Landau has his doubts, as does his music company, but Springsteen persists.
What we don’t realize initially is that the Boss is suffering from clinical depression at this time and that every decision he makes is an attempt to climb out of the depths and into his authenticity as an artist. Later, having moved from New Jersey to L.A., he tells Landau that he is not sure he can outrun the depression anymore.
This is the moment for this viewer when the movie took a turn, as in real life, that a Springsteen fans, I am grateful for. The key player here is not Springsteen but Landau. He fights for Bruce more than the musician can fight for himself. In a meeting with a record company executive, he declares that whereas the company is in the music business, he is in the Bruce Springsteen business.
Landau coaches those working on the Nebraska music to stick to Bruce’s minimalist sound. He helps them find a way to duplicate the demo, even though it is not what anyone is looking for in a Springsteen release. And when he realizes that Bruce needs professional help for depression, he gets it for him.
Some movies about musicians show us greedy managers who don’t have the artist’s interests in mind. They show us love affairs that fail and artists who fall victim to drugs and illness. But not this one. The redemption here come not from the artist’s resilience (though there is some of that) but from the steadfast loyalty and advocacy of a friend. Which makes Jeremy Strong as Jon Landau the real star of this story.