![]() In one of the film’s final scenes, Javed offers a speech at a school assembly. It starts with the epigraph, “Talk about a dream, try to make it real,” a line from Springsteen’s “Badlands,” and focuses on Javed’s hope of becoming a writer, despite his parents’ desire for him to choose a more respectable profession. The film offers solid acting and a compelling portrait of the particulars of family life and the first-generation immigrant experience. ![]() They’re sweet, but a bit self-indulgent at times with choreography that, for better or worse, feels true to a group of high school kids. Yet the film also features a surreal and fantastical element through its dance scenes, set to “Born to Run” and “Thunder Road,” which seem specifically designed to unabashedly celebrate the music of the Boss rather than further the plot. The film features a surreal and fantastical element through its dance scenes, set to “Born to Run” and “Thunder Road.” Themes of nationalism and white supremacy remain sadly current and make the images of National Front marches in the streets all the more terrifying. Springsteen, Javed’s friend tells him, is “a direct line to all that is true in this shitty world.” And this outlet proves a needed relief as Javed and his family face layoffs, financial trouble, prejudice and violent confrontations. Set in 1987, it tells of Javed’s struggle to please his parents and be true to himself in the midst of the austerity of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain and the malign influence of the National Front. “Blinded by the Light” was a Sundance darling and received a standing ovation and a coveted studio deal. Javed remarks to a friend: “It’s like Bruce knows everything I’ve ever felt.” The method is heavy handed, but the sentiment it conveys rings true for anyone who, as a teenager, has suddenly felt understood by the words of a song. ![]() The lyrics literally surround him, appearing as text on the screen as he listens to “Promised Land,” in which Springsteen sings about “heading straight into a storm”-while Javed is forced outside into a literal storm. Javed (Viveik Kalra), a Pakistani-British Muslim teen growing up in Luton, England, speaks or sings Bruce lyrics in the face of racist bullies, and before he kisses a girl, and in conversation with a friend. ‘Blinded by the Light’ captures the angst and joy of being a teenager.Īnd yet, even at the peak of my (ongoing) obsession, I did not find myself using lyrics from Springsteen’s music as part of my everyday dialogue, a practice on which the film relies too heavily, lest we miss exactly how closely the character identifies with the music of the Boss. And we stood for hours next to a man with an image of Springsteen playing the guitar tattooed on his calf and we screamed the lyrics into the night, and when I crawled into bed at 5 a.m. When I was 17, a friend and I drove 10 hours round trip from Massachusetts to New Jersey in one night with the hope that Springsteen would show up on stage at one of his bandmate’s concerts in Asbury Park. A confession: Simply watching the preview to “Blinded by the Light”-the coming-of-age film directed by Gurinder Chadha (“Bend it Like Beckham”) based on a memoir by the British journalist Sarfraz Manzoor about his life and intense love of Bruce Springsteen-made me tear up. ![]()
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