Bruce Springsteen is a God amongst Gods in my world. I worship at the altar of the boss. So, of course, I had a clear-cut bias going into Gurinder Chadha’s “ Blinded By the Light,” and, yes, shockingly, I absolutely adored every minute of its un-shamefully sappy 2 hours. What can you say about a movie that has you smiling ear-to-ear from beginning to end? However, even non-Bruce fans were rather smitten by it at Sundance, where it had its world premiere this past January. This movie is going to be a major crossover hit, I can feel it, I can sense it in my, as Wells would say, insect antennae. I’ll watch it again, I’ll bring my wife, my sisters, my mom, whomever has a love for solid, mainstream filmmaking and has had to deal with me blasting Springsteen’s music on a damn-near weekly basis for years now.
Here’s the conclusion of my review dated 1.29.19:
“This is easily Chadha’s best movie since “Bend it Like Beckham,” taps into a similar rousing spirit and is destined to become a huge hit that crosses generational and cultural lines—not unlike the way Springsteen’s music lifted up a Pakistani teenager in the 1980s thousands of miles away in Great Britain. This is perhaps the true heartrending power of Chadha’s film, one that need not dwell too much about race and culture, because the uniting love of a soulful rock spiritually is universally uniting. The Boss would be proud.”