The great surprise of "Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere" -- a solid, very likable, very affecting drama about an anguished period in the life of the young Bruce Springsteen -- is that it doesn't shy away from soul-deep pain. It's unusual when a movie, particularly from a major studio, just sits with a character's struggles and lets the pain sit until it bleeds off the screen. Hollywood is a cinema of triumph, and even independent filmmakers like emotional tidiness. It's rare when a filmmaker doesn't clean up the messy hurt, the tears and the confusion. Sadness isn't just a bummer; it seems defeatist, almost un-American.

"Deliver Me From Nowhere" opens in 1981 on a note of thunderous success with Bruce (Jeremy Allen White) finishing up his tour for "The River," his fifth album and the

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