--- title: Springsteen's Magic Hits the U.K. in 'Blinded By the Light' description: 'Blinded by the Light,' directed by Gurinder Chadha, tells us that the point of art is how it reaches us in deeply personal ways. canonical: https://time.com/5652773/blinded-by-the-light-bruce-springsteen-movie-review/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-08-15T10:35:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T00:14:31.443Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Review: Bruce Springsteen Holds the Key to Salvation for a British Teen in "Blinded By the Light" og:description: The movie stars charismatic newcomer Viveik Kalra og:url: https://time.com/5652773/blinded-by-the-light-bruce-springsteen-movie-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26887e8e1bfe8b6c/698a015ee76ad2354e6364a0/blinded-by-the-light-bruce-springsteen-movie-review.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: blinded-by-the-light-bruce-springsteen-movie-review og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Review: Bruce Springsteen Holds the Key to Salvation for a British Teen in "Blinded By the Light" twitter:description: The movie stars charismatic newcomer Viveik Kalra twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26887e8e1bfe8b6c/698a015ee76ad2354e6364a0/blinded-by-the-light-bruce-springsteen-movie-review.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Bruce Springsteen Holds the Key to Salvation for a British Teen in _Blinded by the Light_ > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Aug 15, 2019 10:35 AM UTC  Javed (Kalra) feels the music of Springsteen. Javed (Kalra) feels the music of Springsteen.Warner Bros  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Aug 15, 2019 10:35 AM UTC [Bruce Springsteen](https://time.com/5606245/bruce-springsteen-military-veterans/) has been a worldwide, stadium-filling superstar for so long now that it’s easy to forget that many of us first heard his music in far more intimate settings, spinning on a record player late at night or rushing through a set of earphones like a private, secret symphony. _Blinded by the Light_, directed by Gurinder Chadha ([_Bend It Like Beckham_](http://entertainment.time.com/2010/07/06/top-10-soccer-movies/slide/bend-it-like-beckham-2002/)) and adapted from a memoir by Sarfraz Manzoor, reminds us that the whole point of art, and of music, is its power to reach us in deeply personal ways. Javed (played by charismatic newcomer Viveik Kalra) is a British-Pakistani teenager growing up in the dead-end town of Luton, circa late 1980s. He’s dying to get out; getting good grades and going off to university is his best hope. He also writes poems and stories–one of the former is titled “Luton Is a Four-Letter Word”–though that enterprise is frowned upon by his father Malik (Kulvinder Ghir), who controls his family by forcing them to conform to strict Pakistani cultural conventions. Then Javed discovers Springsteen’s music, songs about being held back by small-town thinking, of wanting to take a wrong turn and just keep going. He’s astonished at the songs’ almost mystical connection with his own life, which only gets harder: Malik loses his job, and Javed’s mother Noor (Meera Ganatra, in a gorgeously subtle supporting performance), an at-home seamstress, is forced to take in almost more work than she can bear. Meanwhile, Britain’s National Front menaces Javed’s neighborhood: it’s bad enough to feel out of place in your own family, without hatred and bigotry threatening that family’s right to exist in the first place. Javed has to learn that no one’s music can solve all his problems, and the movie winds up in a place that’s easy to predict beforehand. But that hardly matters. Chadha uses Springsteen’s music in vivid, creative ways–for instance, projecting the lyrics of “Promised Land” in swirling letters against a sand-colored brick wall, as Javed, feeling imprisoned in his own skin, his own life, is pinned against it by a buffeting windstorm. Joyous and funny even as it strikes the occasional melancholy chord, _Blinded by the Light_ is a testament to the small miracle of how the right music manages to find us at just the right time, even when it has to travel from New Jersey all the way to that four-letter word, Luton. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5652773/blinded-by-the-light-bruce-springsteen-movie-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5652773/blinded-by-the-light-bruce-springsteen-movie-review/"},"headline":"Bruce Springsteen Holds the Key to Salvation for a British Teen in Blinded by the Light","datePublished":"2019-08-15T10:35:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T00:14:31.443Z","description":"'Blinded by the Light,' directed by Gurinder Chadha, tells us that the point of art is how it reaches us in deeply personal ways.","url":"https://time.com/5652773/blinded-by-the-light-bruce-springsteen-movie-review/","keywords":["movies"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26887e8e1bfe8b6c/698a015ee76ad2354e6364a0/blinded-by-the-light-bruce-springsteen-movie-review.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Stephanie Zacharek","jobTitle":"Film Critic","url":"https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt26887e8e1bfe8b6c/698a015ee76ad2354e6364a0/blinded-by-the-light-bruce-springsteen-movie-review.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"blinded-by-the-light-bruce-springsteen-movie-review","caption":"Javed (Kalra) feels the music of Springsteen.","creditText":"Warner Bros","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5652773/blinded-by-the-light-bruce-springsteen-movie-review/","name":"Bruce Springsteen Holds the Key to Salvation for a British Teen in Blinded by the Light"}}]}] ```