A SHINING ‘LIGHT’
You don’t have to be a Springsteen fan — but it won’t hurt — to be moved by “Blinded by the Light,” starring Viveik Kalra and Nell Williams. The film gets four stars from reviewer Ed Masley.
You don’t have to love Bruce Springsteen with the all-consuming passion of Sarfraz Manzoor, the U.K. journalist whose memoir was adapted for the screenplay of “Blinded By the Light,” to find the film both deeply moving and utterly charming.
But it couldn’t hurt to be at least a casual fan, given how often the movie slips into an overt celebration of the
Boss’ legacy, complete with huge production numbers of characters singing along to Springsteen’s music in the streets. Or running through those streets while “Born to Run” is blasting through the speakers at triumphant volumes.
There’s even a scene of two teenagers fending off bullies by shouting the words to a Springsteen song at them in public.
That’s no way to fend off bullies. Even non-believers may get caught up in the far more universal themes at work in Gurinder Chadha’s film, though, from the power of music – not just Springsteen songs – to transform lives and lift the human spirit to the struggle at the heart of many parentchild relationships as the child becomes an individual that may not be exactly what the parent had in mind.
It’s a struggle that’s played out to brilliant dramatic effect as Chadha cues up Springsteen’s “Independence Day,” which couldn’t feel more perfect in that moment.
Set in 1987, “Blinded By the Light” tells the story of Javed (Viveik Kalra), a British teen whose family moved from Pakistan to the working-class borough of Luton when he was a toddler. Javed spends the film coming of age in a racially hostile environment, dealing with skinheads shouting racial slurs, while his parents work too much to barely make ends meet.
The teens finds the courage to challenge his father and follow his dreams of becoming a writer after a classmate (a suitably starry-eyed Aaron Phagura) introduces him to Springsteen, a working-class dreamer whose lyrics feel like they could just as easily have come from Javed’s journal.
There’s a scene of him slipping a Springsteen cassette in his Walkman for his first taste of the music that would go on to define him and immediately getting lost in “Dancing in the Dark” as Springsteen gives voice to the drudgery he knows so well. It’s a moment of epiphany that’s beautifully directed and brilliantly acted by Kalra as he allows his character’s reaction to those lyrics spread across his face.
There are plenty of scenes as powerful as that in “Blinded By the Light.”
And many of those scenes have less to do with Springsteen’s music than they have to do with Javed’s strained relationship with the father who’s worked his whole life in a factory to give his son a better life than he himself had any hope of living.
It’s a volatile dynamic that’s ripe for drama and catharsis. Chadha makes the most of both those possibilities in poignant scenes that may require several tissues for some viewers.
Other scenes find Chadha giving full rein to her inner Springsteen fan. And if those scenes can feel a little corny, well, the same is often true of Springsteen’s music. It’s his willingness to risk an eye-roll that makes Springsteen’s grandest, most romantic gestures resonate the way they do.