![]() ![]() Same for the yearning in “The Promised Land.” Chadha perfectly captures the feeling of listening to a deeply personal piece of music for the first time, convinced that the artist has somehow tapped into your soul. ![]() When he hears “Dancing in the Dark,” he relates to the cry of loneliness and desperation. ![]() Javed pops a tape into his Walkman on a dark and stormy night, and like a clap of thunder, his world opens. and Darkness on the Edge of Town, two classic Springsteen albums. After a hallway run-in, a fellow student (Aaron Phagura) gives Javed his treasured cassettes of Born in the U.S.A. That person turns out to be one Bruce Springsteen, of Freehold, New Jersey. At his high school, he doesn’t fit in with the “Wham! boys and Bananarama girls.” He longs for an escape and for somebody, anybody, to understand him. His strict, newly unemployed dad expects him to be an obedient son and help contribute to the household payroll. His Muslim parents uprooted the family there from Pakistan, and now he’s on the receiving end of vile racial slurs. (Characters literally race along a highway as “Born to Run” booms in the background!) But there’s no denying the film’s infectious spirit, and while Springsteen devotees will lap it up, anyone who’s ever inserted a pair of ear buds and pressed play during a private moment of despair will also appreciate its message about the power of music.īlinded tells the story of Javed (newcomer Viveik Kalra), an introverted aspiring writer living in the small English town of Luton during the Margaret Thatcher era. Adapted from Sarfraz Manzoor’s memoir Greetings From Bury Park: A Memoir, and directed by Gurinder Chadha with the same you-can-do-it! attitude that she brought to the hit Bend It Like Beckham back in 2003, Blinded by the Light is cheesy, predictable and so eager to be loved that it may as well be a tail-wagging puppy dressed in a red bandana. ![]()
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