Blinded by the Light *** (2019, Viveik Kalra, Kulvinder Ghir, Meera Ganatra) – Movie Review –

Director Gurinder Chadha’s Blinded by the Light is a good-natured, often amusing and affecting musical comedy drama, inspired by the words and music of Bruce Springsteen, and set in the dark days of Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 Britain. It is lit up by an appealing performance from Viveik Kalra as Javed, a British boy with Pakistani parents, battling racism and his strict upbringing in the car-making town of Luton, Bedfordshire, afflicted by Thatcher’s austerity policy.

Blinded by the Light is a bit wobbly and uncertain of tone at the start. The scenes are hesitant – both writing and handling – and so are the performances. So you need to stick through its initial slow, weak burn, but it picks up and gains hold, getting stronger, more confident and more fun as it goes along. It makes its points loud and clear, and for once, a film set long ago, is still sharply relevant.

The end, though, is too abrupt and way too sentimental, the sad, strict, stubborn, out-of-work dad changing his mind far too easily and quickly, putting a final dent in the film’s credibility. Overall, Blinded by the Light isn’t quite as uplifting or special as Chadha would probably have liked, but it is okay, definitely entertaining and likeable, and better certainly than the oddly similar Yesterday.

The quirky, unlikely tale is inspired by the life of journalist Sarfraz Manzoor and his love of Springsteen songs, and based on Manzoor’s memoir Greetings from Bury Park: Race, Religion and Rock N’ Roll. You can see why they changed the movie title to Blinded by the Light, though it doesn’t make much sense here.

Of course we get Springsteen’s Born to Run, among a slew of his songs on the soundtrack, but also Don’t You Want Me performed by The Human League and I Think We’re Alone Now performed by Tiffany.

Dean-Charles Chapman and Rob Brydon are a bit slack as Javed’s buddy Matt and Matt’s Dad, but that is probably more to do with how their roles are written. The actors are game enough.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com