Although lacking in focus, Gurinder Chadha’s latest adaptation says something charming about the transformative power of music.
Gurinder Chadha, a director well-known for adapting from page to screen, is at the helm for this film adaptation of Sarfraz Manzoor’s 2008 memoir, Greetings from Bury Park. Telling the story of Javed (Viveik Kalra), Blinded by the Light focuses on the struggles and austerity faced by a British Pakistani teenager growing up in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. Stuck in the town of Luton in 1987, Javed dreams of moving away and becoming a writer, which his domineering father, Malik (Kulvinder Ghir), wholly disapproves of. Feeling trapped and isolated, Javed’s life is transformed when he discovers the music of Bruce Springsteen.
A common theme throughout Chadha’s work is the struggle faced by immigrants in British society and this is certainly the case in Blinded by the Light. Although set in the 1980s, Chadha felt inspired to make this film due to her perception that there was an increasingly racist attitude rising towards immigrants in modern Britain. In an interview with CNN, Chadha is quoted as saying: ‘In Britain, Brexit was announced…and I was shocked, like many people, about how suddenly…all these xenophobes came from nowhere and I was really upset.’
Xenophobia and racism are present throughout the film, with one particularly harrowing sequence showing a young boy urinating through a Pakistani family’s letterbox. The boys’ actions are filmed through a glass window, with their animalistic behaviour being highlighted by Chadha’s framing of them like zoo animals.
As Javed struggles with his identity in a world that seemingly does not want to accept his Pakistani roots, his domestic life only serves to heighten that sense of isolation. Malik is written as a somewhat stereotypical immigrant father, who wants his family to retain their Pakistani traditions whilst Javed wishes to be independent. The conflict between father and son is at the heart of the film and, although clichéd at times, it feels authentic due to the performances of Ghir and Kalra respectively.
After a particularly fraught argument with his father, Javed listens to some Springsteen tapes that were given to him by his friend, Roops (Aaron Phagura) and he is almost instantaneously transformed. Springsteen’s lyrics literally appear as onscreen text, spinning around Javed’s head as he begins to make connections between Springsteen’s words and his own personal struggles.
From this point on, the film becomes a series of set-pieces, soundtracked by Springsteen’s back catalogue. It is worth noting that as Javed embraces Springsteen, Blinded by the Light gets increasingly cheesy and unashamedly so. Javed’s dialogue is often restricted to unironic recitals of Springsteen lyrics. There are moments in which the film teases becoming a musical, with the characters singing and dancing along to the sound of Springsteen. The most bizarre of these sequences is one in which Rob Brydon, doing his finest cockney accent whilst trying to avoid slipping back into his native Welsh, joins in with a street performance of Thunder Road. This reliance on Springsteen’s music to maximise audience response leaves the film feeling unfocused and unpolished, as narrative and dialogue are seemingly forgotten about in favour of Springsteen.
And yet, despite the uneven final product, there is something undeniably sweet and charming about Blinded by the Light. Whilst it is certainly a love letter to the music of Bruce Springsteen, it is more of an ode to the power of music itself. This is emphasised by the sequence in which Javed takes his sister, Shazia (Nikita Mehta) to a dance hall and she pronounces that this is the place in which she can be herself. Javed’s life is changed thanks to Springsteen’s music and this gives him the belief and confidence that he can achieve his goals, despite the austerity going on around him. His relationship with the music is inherently personal and yet it is also what unites him with those who are most important to him.
Blinded by the Light is undeniably cheesy and struggles in its middle section due to an uneven narrative. However, there is something genuinely sweet about the film’s message and its heartfelt belief in the transformative power of music. It has its flaws and often lacks focus but Blinded by the Light still works to some degree, thanks to Chadha’s faith in her cast’s ability to embrace the film’s gleeful cheesiness.
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