Though “Dancing in the Dark” is the first song he hears, he quickly delves into the artist’s angsty ’70s songs, such as “The Promised Land” and “Prove It All Night.” Chadha, who wrote the film with Manzoor and her husband, Paul Mayeda Berges, is highlighting how the romance and emotion of the music speaks to Javed’s anxiety about his restrictive home life and demanding father.Ĭhadha has made multiple movies about the intergenerational strain that comes with immigrating to Britain, starring teenagers who feel pulled between fitting in with their friends and satisfying their more traditional families. The moment Javed pops a Springsteen tape into his Walkman, however, Chadha dramatizes the music as an inspirational bolt from the blue, breaking the fourth wall with lyrics that pop up on-screen around Javed’s head as he listens in awe. They are all obsessed with New Wave music and coiffed with A Flock of Seagulls haircuts Javed’s parents, meanwhile, are skeptical of any Western pop culture. and is barely acknowledged by Javed’s teenage friends. When Javed first discovers Springsteen’s songs, in 1987, the musician is a few years removed from his smash hit Born in the U.S.A.
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The core conflict of the film is between Javed (played by Viveik Kalra) and his father, Malik (Kulvinder Ghir) Chadha empathetically renders Javed’s efforts to resist his dad’s hard-work-obsessed mind-set, while digging into the teenage insensitivity that sometimes accompanies those battles. The director centers the action in a politically volatile time for Britain, but a rather sedate one in terms of Springsteen’s career, and exults in how great art can inspire people in any circumstances. It’s based on a memoir by Sarfraz Manzoor that recounts how discovering Springsteen in the ’80s, while growing up in the suburban town of Luton, England, encouraged him to pursue his passion for poetry and writing. But Chadha’s new movie, Blinded by the Light-the story of a British Pakistani boy who falls in love with the music of Springsteen-is her best effort in years, a hugely charming and surprising match of artistic styles.Ĭhadha excels when she’s at her most sincere, and Blinded by the Light is overflowing with sincerity. The British Indian filmmaker behind such cheerful comedies as Bend It Like Beckham and Bride & Prejudice might not seem like an ideal interpreter for New Jersey’s greatest and grittiest songwriter.
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To say as much is not to diminish his music, but to explain why he fits so well in the oeuvre of a director like Gurinder Chadha. Bruce Springsteen, poet laureate of the American worker, musical essayist of that ineffable feeling of being caught between a rock and a hard place, is very much a heart-on-sleeve artist.