I really wanted to hate this movie. I missed out on so much in high school, and made so many mistakes, that I don't want to deal with "uplifting" movies where the boy does everything right. I can't deal with that, because it hurts too much. I don't want to learn positive lessons, and I don't want to be uplifted.
This movie looked like it would be the perfect storm.
For about the first forty-five minutes, it really was as awful as I feared (or hoped) that it would be. It was like watching PRETTY IN PINK only the characters kept acting like they were "really" in ON THE WATERFRONT. The cute, teen characters just didn't seem to belong with the ugly, dirty setting. There was too much forced humor and the boy's parents were comical immigrants and didn't seem real.
It takes a lot of effort, but if you stick with this movie for long enough it starts to make sense. At first the hero is like, listening to Springsteen on his Walkman 24/7 and that's all he needs to turn his life around. He literally kisses his girl because he hears Bruce's voice telling him "you want it -- you take it -- you pay the price!" I really didn't know whether to laugh or cry at that point. I guess the reason I failed in high school is because my favorite song was "Get Off of My Cloud!"
But as the story gets darker, and the boy gets angrier, the connection to Bruce Springsteen actually feels a lot more real and valid. I loved the part where he was arguing with his father, and the father yells, "You are MY SON!" And the boy yells back, "I don't want to be! I want to be MORE than that!" Why that excited me is not that it's great drama, or that I could relate to it from my own life. But that one moment really sums up everything Bruce Springsteen has to say about fathers and sons in about thirty years worth of music. In that sense this movie convinced me that it was real in the end, even though an awful lot of it feels fake and oddly sentimental.
So three and a half stars feels right. The first half hour is more like a John Hughes movie than anything else. But the last half hour is really powerful. And as childish as the Springsteen worship seems at the beginning, by the end it comes across as powerful and absolutely sincere.
I just wish someone could make a movie like this about the Doors. Final scene: Javid walks into his dad's bedroom with his Walkman on.
"Father?"
"Yes, son."
"I want to kill you!"
Now that's what I call rock and roll!
This movie looked like it would be the perfect storm.
For about the first forty-five minutes, it really was as awful as I feared (or hoped) that it would be. It was like watching PRETTY IN PINK only the characters kept acting like they were "really" in ON THE WATERFRONT. The cute, teen characters just didn't seem to belong with the ugly, dirty setting. There was too much forced humor and the boy's parents were comical immigrants and didn't seem real.
It takes a lot of effort, but if you stick with this movie for long enough it starts to make sense. At first the hero is like, listening to Springsteen on his Walkman 24/7 and that's all he needs to turn his life around. He literally kisses his girl because he hears Bruce's voice telling him "you want it -- you take it -- you pay the price!" I really didn't know whether to laugh or cry at that point. I guess the reason I failed in high school is because my favorite song was "Get Off of My Cloud!"
But as the story gets darker, and the boy gets angrier, the connection to Bruce Springsteen actually feels a lot more real and valid. I loved the part where he was arguing with his father, and the father yells, "You are MY SON!" And the boy yells back, "I don't want to be! I want to be MORE than that!" Why that excited me is not that it's great drama, or that I could relate to it from my own life. But that one moment really sums up everything Bruce Springsteen has to say about fathers and sons in about thirty years worth of music. In that sense this movie convinced me that it was real in the end, even though an awful lot of it feels fake and oddly sentimental.
So three and a half stars feels right. The first half hour is more like a John Hughes movie than anything else. But the last half hour is really powerful. And as childish as the Springsteen worship seems at the beginning, by the end it comes across as powerful and absolutely sincere.
I just wish someone could make a movie like this about the Doors. Final scene: Javid walks into his dad's bedroom with his Walkman on.
"Father?"
"Yes, son."
"I want to kill you!"
Now that's what I call rock and roll!