_{Photo by Danny Clinch that features Jeremy Allen White and Bruce Springsteen in a promotional image for the biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. The photograph was taken by Clinch and is associated with the film, which stars White as Springsteen.} 

If you are looking for the E Street Band or Clarence Clemons, you may find Scott Cooper’s film Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, sad. Well, yes, sad in that the time frame –from the book by Warren Zanes–covers a childhood in New Jersey with shall we say, flawed parents, and a meltdown as he was creating the album “Nebraska.” Screened at the New York Film Festival, where fans incanted “Bruuuuuce” the way they always do, the film had a night that was far from sad. In fact, exuberant! Pleased, Bruce Springsteen took the stage in a post-screening performance.

Alice Tully Hall is a huge space, but maybe small compared to the way The Boss can now fill a house. The Stone Pony is smaller still as the performance venue in the film where a girl named Faye (Odessa Young) hopes he will fill her dreams. Best locale though is the bedroom where we see Jeremy Allen White as Springsteen work diligently for simple truth-telling material which he wants to launch without a promotional single, without a tour, without press. Watch Jeremy Strong’s face as he takes this news in. As agent Jon Landau, he is supportive of this folly in a time when Bruce was hot. But, hey, the film’s triumph is the vision of an artist wresting his art from commerce, staying “true.”

Jon Landau was present at the premiere, as were Clive Davis who first signed Bruce Springsteen, Julian Schnabel and his son Vito Schnabel, Paul Schrader whose script for a movie Born to Run gave Springsteen the title of his signature song. Stephen Graham, a standout as the father in the series Adolescence, and now as Bruce Springsteen’s dad, has a lock on that paternal place. As to Springsteen, we can all rejoice in another triumph: he got over his funk.