LIKE A BOSS
‘Blinded by the Light’ illuminates music’s power
First we get “Yesterday,” and now “Blinded by the Light,” the former featuring the music of The Beatles, the latter Bruce Springsteen aka the Boss (and I didn’t even mention the host of musicrelated documentaries). We are riding a wave of musical nostalgia, perhaps propelled by discontent with our smartphone and Spotify present, which traps music buffs in a narcissistic, musical echo chamber.
“Blinded by the Light,” which is based on a true story and was directed by Gurinder Chadha of the sublime “Bend It Like Beckham,” is set in the late 1980s, a decade past Springsteen’s prime on the charts. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan are the platonic Romeo and Juliet of conservatism. The fascist National Front has made swastikas and Heil Hitler salutes fashionable again, as well as bashing “Pakis” (i.e., Pakistani immigrants) and telling them — hello —
to go back from whence they came.
Our hero is Javed “J” Khan (Viveik Kalra), a young man who dreams of growing up to be a writer, but is caught between the authoritarianism of a traditional Pakistani father, Malik (Kulvinder Ghir in a role once frequently played by the great Om Puri), and the rampant tribalism at his school. Javed, who is a 16year-old virgin and has never had a girlfriend (his father will choose his wife), writes lyrics for songs for budding musician friend Matt (Dean-Charles Chapman), who lives across the street in a modest public housing development.
Javed feels sad about his mother (Meera Ganatra), who slaves over a sewing machine to make ends meet after his father loses his job. Javed also believes that the grumpy-looking white man next door is about to tell him to get off his lawn. The only place Javed is happy is in his English class, where teacher Miss Clay (Hayley Atwell) encourages him and wants to read his poems, and there is a girl named Eliza (Nell Williams of “Game of Thrones”) he has a crush on. Also at school, Javed is introduced to Springsteen music by Sikh fellow outcast and student Roops (Aaron Phagura), and his life is changed. Suddenly, lyrics from such classics as “Jungleland,” “Born in the U.S.A.,” “Badlands,” “Promised Land” and “Born to Run” begin to appear on the screen around Javed’s head like bees seeking to pollinate.
Chadha, who co-wrote the screenplay with “Bend It Like Beckham’s” Paul Mayeda Berges, bores in with the camera closely in most scenes when she isn’t giving us God’s-eye views of Luton from the skies. “Blinded by the Light” unlocks the mystery of the way music and musicians leap across enormous cultural and historical gulfs and speak to us by putting
unforgettable words and melodies to our innermost and outermost fears and desires. The music convinces Javed that someone understands him and gives him the confidence to pursue his dream of becoming a writer, even if it means defying his father. He also courts Eliza by singing the lyrics of “Thunder Road” to her in public with the help of Matt’s Springsteen fan father (the inimitable Rob Brydon) in one of the film’s knockout sequences. Do I smell a Broadway adaptation? Like the man said, “Talk about a dream, try to make it real.”
(“Blinded by the Light” contains profanity and ethnic slurs.)