REVIEW | FILMBruce Springsteen’s swaggering
good looks, timeless lyrics and low,
throaty vocals have earned him
permanent status as a pop culture
icon in the U.S. of A. But Blinded by
the Light takes viewers all the way
across the pond to Luton, a British
small town that’s barely heard of
the Boss, where a Pakistani teen
named Javed is coming to the real-
ization that he’s gotta get out while
he’s young.
The new release from Bend It
Like Beckham director Gurinder
Chadha is based on a memoir by
Springsteen superfan Sarfraz Man-
zoor, who also contributed to the
screenplay. Like Manzoor, Javed
(played by Viveik Kalra) is coming
of age in Margaret Thatcher-era
England, struggling to navigate
high school and trying to break
free from his parents’ traditional
expectations. Though Javed is a
talented poet, he keeps his writing
hidden from his family’s watch-
ful eyes until one of his friends,
Roops (Aaron Phagura), intro-
duces him to the music of New Jersey’s favorite
son via a few loaned cassette tapes (it’s the ’80s,
after all).
When Javed loads the cassette into his Walkman
and hits play, the chords of “Dancing in the Dark” float
through his headphones and the lyrics themselves lit-
erally pop up and revolve around him. As he flips from
song to song, they continue to unfurl across the screen.
It’s a gimmick that could jar viewers from the realism
of the film thus far, but as the movie goes on and the
words of Springsteen splash onto the side of Javed’s
house in a thunderstorm, it helps illustrate that these
compositions are larger than life. It’s the same way
Javed himself hears and feels them, and as he sings
along, we can’t help but wish we were dancing beside
him in the rain.
Kalra’s performance as Javed is nothing to scoff
at. The Beecham House actor shines in his debut fea-
ture, capturing the emotional turmoil between the
expectations of his high school peers and his parents’
conflicting immigrant ideals, while still retaining an
air of earnest innocence that leads him to start dress-
ing and styling his hair like his idol. Kulvinder Ghir also
delivers a strong portrayal as Javed’s inflexible father,
Malik, who would be all too easy to hate were it not for
the character’s poignant moments of vulnerability,
such as his tearful breakdown in the kitchen while his
wife is dying his hair. These rare but powerful scenes
connect audiences to a character who, otherwise,
seems ridiculously attached to outdated traditions.
Aside from these standout performances, there’s
plenty of dead weight on the cast list. While it’s excit-
ing to see the Asian guy get the girl, Javed’s girlfriend
Eliza (Nell Williams) is cutesy as the cool, punk chick
of Javed’s dreams, but is useless to the overall story
(as are most of Javed’s family members). Javed’s sup-posed best friend Matt, played
by Game of Thrones actor Dean-
Charles Chapman, figures in a few
hilarious sequences, but inexplica-
bly vanishes for the majority of the
film, only to reappear at the end for
a contrived goodbye.
But more troubling than the
extraneous characters cluttering
the film is a distinct lack of stakes,
both for Javed and his circle of
family and friends. In the 1980s,
an influx of Pakistani immigrants
endured often-violent forms of
racism and discrimination, so
common there was even a catchy
name for it: Paki-bashing. But in the
movie, serious assaults are reduced
to little more than an inconve-
nience, such as neighbor boys
peeing through a mail slot or graffiti
spray-painted on a garage door.
Though there are a few moments
where the threat of physical vio-
lence becomes real, they’re often
cheapened. In an early scene in
which Roops and Javed are bullied
by white supremacists at a restau-
rant, the two respond by quoting Springsteen lyrics
at the thugs (cringe), spitting on them and singing as
they run away, with no apparent repercussions. It’s
clear by the first third of the film that our suspension
of disbelief will be tested, but this particular scene, and
several others like it, seems to imply that the power of
good music and self-belief can overcome any obstacle.
While it’s a nice fantasy, and one that the rest of the
movie’s plot struggles to uphold, it’s just too hard to
swallow given the real and painful history of the era.
Blinded by the Light is an undeniably fun film to
watch, and Javed’s loving evocation of Springsteen will
call back anybody’s angsty teenage years. (And if you
weren’t unhealthily obsessed with a band or a singer in
high school, what were you even doing?) But the lack of
realistic consequences lessens the impact of the mov-
ie’s premise—the welcome escape music can provide
from a harsh and unfair world.TEXT BY CU FLESHMAN
Greetings From Luton
Blinded by the Light takes a look at 1980s England through the rose-colored glasses of Bruce Springsteen’s
greatest hits.
BORN TO JUMP From left: Nell Williams, Viveik Kalra and Aaron Phagura being exuberant in
England. Photo by Nick Wall.CM