Blinded By the Light review: irresistible Springsteen-powered Eighties escapism
Dir: Gurinder Chadha. Cast: Viveik Kalra, Kulvinder Ghir, Hayley Atwell, Meera Ganatra, Aaron Phagura, Dean-Charles Chapman, Nikita Mehta, David Hayman. 12A cert, 117 mins
Luton, 1987. There it nestles, grey and squat, in the opening moments of Blinded by the Light, not far enough out of London to be anyone’s idea of a destination in its own right. If you’re there, you’re most likely trying to fly – cheaply – to another continent. Javed (Viveik Kalra) has no choice in the matter: he’s a British-Pakistani kid at the fag end of Thatcherism, stranded in the suburban purgatory of Bury Park well into his late teens. The metropolis, beckoning down the M1, is at once temptingly close and another world away.
Javed’s yearning to escape is loosely derived from the pages of a memoir, 2007’s Greetings from Bury Park, by the journalist Sarfraz Manzoor, which has tempted Gurinder Chadha back into the kind of feel-good mode that yielded her biggest hit to date, 2001’s scrappily exuberant Bend it Like Beckham. There the wild card was football; here it’s Bruce Springsteen, whose music Javed avidly discovers and relates to his own predicament.
Instead of Asbury Park, New Jersey, he’s stifled achingly in these suburbs, “waiting for a saviour to rise from these streets”. But the saviour, for this awkward and underconfident wannabe writer – and ditto for the filmmakers – is Springsteen himself.
Without consent from the Boss, this film couldn’t have happened. He gave permission for 19 of his heartland anthems to rev up on the soundtrack and lift Javed’s hopes off the screen. Lent a cassette of Born in the USA by his Sikh classmate Roops (Aaron Phagura), Javed plugs himself in on that stormy night Michael Fish failed to warn us about, and all the problems at home – especially his vexed relationship with a super-demanding dad (Kulvinder Ghir) – melt away.
Other kids are voguing to synthesisers or Tiffany singles, and trying out a variety of terrible haircuts. But for Javed, it’s The Promised Land, double denim, and a white V-neck, all the way.
Winning us over with new faces has always been one of Chadha’s reliable strengths. Beckham was a breakthrough for both Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley; here Kalra gives a smashingly open and endearing performance. The film doesn’t force us on to his side – the character’s a doofus, wayward and wrapped up in himself, in relatable, credible ways. And even when the formula does seem strained or a little coercive, Kalra has a habit of coming charismatically to its rescue.
It takes a love of Springsteen’s widescreen balladry, perhaps – all hail the mighty Thunder Road – to get on the film’s wavelength, but it’s an invitation right there for the taking. Chadha pitches things just right for a couple of minutes at a flower market, as Javed pipes up with the opening lyrics of that song, a cappella, for a would-be girlfriend he’s trying to impress.
Rob Brydon, lending tragically bewigged support as his friend’s dad, grabs a shoulder and sings along. It’s infectiously silly and sweet – goosebumps, for sure. And yes, Chadha can’t help pushing it too far, into a full-blown choreographed number which takes the shine off by opening the door to trippy fantasy. It’s better when it’s tentative – as a later sprint-along, with three of the kids yelping out Born to Run as the M1 roars beneath them, also helplessly proves. But the magic lingers for that passing moment.
Javed’s story won’t feel unfamiliar for anyone who’s seen East is East, and there are elements falling rote at the wayside. Hayley Atwell charms her way sensibly through a stock role as an inspirational teacher, nudging Javed to put his own voice out there. David Hayman, as a cranky-looking ex-Army neighbour with sage thoughts about NF racism, is a miracle of gravitas, given the assignment.
Javed’s patronage by these well-meaning figures of authority feels a bit, well, patronising – without their regular pats on the back, it’s implied he’d just mope and stagnate. There’s much more substance in his relationship with his father, the key figure he wants to both rebel against and paradoxically make proud – a role to which the excellent Ghir brings Om Puri levels of exacting love and indignation.
The film wants your indulgence much as Springsteen’s lyrics do, flashing these on screen as captions and getting away with many of the same schmaltzy effects. As these jukebox greatest-hits affairs go, it’s hardly any pushier than Rocketman.
And it gains quite a lot from the ordinary kid who’s piping up – it’s almost the whole point that he’s nowhere near as good a singer as Taron Egerton. Meanwhile, all the moments we spend in his bedroom, spotting the posters that go up and down, are time well-spent for anyone with a soupçon of Eighties nostalgia in their soul.
Gawky as it can be, Blinded by the Light succeeds in lowering your defences with a distinctively Chadha-esque blend of modesty and gumption – like most of her better films, it shouldn’t work, but it does.
