After starring roles for Freddie Mercury
(“Bohemian Rhapsody”), Elton John
(“Rocketman”) and the Beatles (“Yesterday”), it’s
Bruce Springsteen’s turn to join the mixtape that
the movies have lately become.
But Gurinder Chadha’s “Blinded by the Light” isn’t
about the Boss’ life or how he recorded his hits.
It’s about hearing him — and not in Asbury Park
but far away in the British industrial town of Luton,
where the British-Pakistani 16-year-old Javed
(newcomer Viveik Kalra) finds in Springsteen’s
working-class anthems the sound of his soul.
When Javed, beleaguered by his overbearing
father (Kulvinder Ghir) and feeling hopeless in
Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 Britain, presses play
on his Walkman one lonely night, he’s almost
instantly transformed by “Dancing in the Dark.”
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