Blinded By The Light Review

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By: Grace Conley

“Born to run for 2 hours straight.” 

Blinded By The Light is the epitome of a feel-good movie. It’s got heart, a couple laughs and as all feel-good movies have, an undying love for Bruce Springsteen. As someone who is not a Bruce fan and knows very little of his discography, I still found this movie very enjoyable. While it isn’t about Bruce specifically, it’s about falling in love with an artist, a movie or a celebrity, and helping you deal with what you’re going through and discover yourself. That’s what I like most about this movie, it’s really personal in that sense as it is ‘inspired by a true story’. It makes me feel that the guy this is about really needed to get his story told, and this movie was cathartic for him.

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Viveik Kalra as Javed

Beyond that, this movie isn’t really special. But it is special to him and that’s what matters. The other thing I like about this movie is the family drama. I don’t really care about his high school romance gallivants or his passion for writing because they are as fleshed out. But the relationship of a Pakistani family living just outside of London, trying to make ends meet with a difficult power dynamic – is fascinating.

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From Left: Nell Williams as Eliza, Viveik Kalra as Javed and Aaron Phagura as Goops

The main character, Javed, and his father’s relationship is the most prevalent throughout the story. I guess I like all of the real parts of this movie: the relationships, the passion, the struggles, but I don’t really like the music aspect.

Javed and His Father

Bruce comes in and out very strangely through lyrics popping up on the screen, through the characters singing them and then they get drowned out by the sound of the real song, but you can still kinda hear them in dance numbers. It’s like they can’t figure out if they want this to be grounded in reality or fantastical. And it’s toying with that idea throughout making the choices seem unsure and confusing.

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From Left: Sarfraz Manzoor (Screenwriter), Patti Scialfa (Springsteen’s wife), Bruce Springsteen, and Director/Producer/Screenwriter Gurinder Chadha.

The worst is when Javed recites these lyrics to his love interest all close and sensual like, it’s really cringy to watch. And that’s how I would describe all of the music elements, cringey but sometimes cute.

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Javed (Left) and Eliza

This movie is filled with cheese and cliches but at its heart, it has something new to say and some insight to give. It’s nowhere near perfect but I really admire the intimate look into Javed’s life.

VERDICT

8.1/10

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