Written by George Heftler
Set in Margaret Thatcher’s austerity years of 1987 England, you might be surprised at how relevant Blinded by the Light is to the United States today. Racial division is high with an unfortunate resurgence of Nazis (boo Nazis!). There’s a nutty conservative in power. A lot of people are out of work. And parents? They just don’t understand.
Directed and co-written by Gurinder Chadha (with Paul Mayeda Berges also writing), Blinded by the Light is the story of Javed (Viveik Kalra), a Pakistani teen just trying to chase down his dream of becoming a writer. Unfortunately, his father is both out of work and unsupportive, which means that pursuing this dream has to be done in various shades of secrecy while also working to help keep his family afloat. When Javed starts taking an advanced course at a local college, a fellow student introduces him to the music of Bruce Springsteen, whose lyrics about love, loss and being stuck in a small town connect with him like nothing else.
As a big Springsteen fan myself, I was fearful that this movie would be corny. Luckily, we are treated to a powerful and moving story that treats both the characters and the music respectfully. It would have been easy to make the stern father a cliché, and to just use the music without examining it past the surface level. Instead, the father is a fully realized character captured excellently by Kulvinder Ghir and Javed’s relationship to the music evolves as his experiences do.
It’s not a perfect movie, but there is a lot to enjoy. The acting ranges from solid to excellent, and there’s some really great shot composition as well. One shot that sticks out while also representing the movie at large is Javed standing alone and helpless in the middle of the road, watching the fallout from a Nazi march as a political billboard above his shoulder claims Thatcher has united England. In reality, both the country and Javed himself are incredibly divided. But music hath charms to soothe the savage beast, and the universality of Bruce’s message touches not just Javed but us as an audience as well.
The movie also briefly touches on the harm casual cruelty can do to someone’s psyche. Javed’s father’s brusqueness makes him feel small and unimportant, but his friend Matt (whose life he envies) lets the façade drop for a moment when his father (a great supporting performance by Rob Brydon) makes fun of Matt and seems to connect more with Javed thanks to the Boss. It’s not handled in the most exacting way, but it’s a small weak point in an otherwise delightful movie elevated by the soundtrack and the performances. If you’re a Bruce fan, this is not just a brilliant disguise, it’s the promised land. The only thing missing was the best Springsteen song, which is obviously “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight).”
