Bruce Springsteen is sad.

My mistake; Bruce Springsteen was sad. Or to be specific, Bruce Springsteen was sad during the making of his 1982 album, . And if we’re to believe the heavy-handed final title cards, he’s still sad today. But it’s a different flavour of sad — a sad managed by therapists, indefatigably supportive friends and a quiet acceptance of his sort-of-abusive, mostly-meant-well father.

This is the focus of , a microcosm of an artist’s career helpfully scored by subsequent hits like and . Attempting less to outline a grand, arcing trajectory, it is a mostly self-contained effort; meticulously cataloguing the writing and recording of that record, and how it changed Springsteen's outlook.

If that nearly flat character arc seems like a shallow hook to hang an entire movie’s h

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