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‘Western Stars’ Review: Bruce Springsteen and Broken Cowboys

This concert film, directed by the singer and Thom Zimny, puts Bruce in a barn with an orchestra to make some magic.

By Ken Jaworowski

“You can get a little too fond of the blues,” Bruce Springsteen sings in “Hello Sunshine.” It’s a song about the seductiveness of melancholy, one that warns, “You fall in love with lonely, you end up that way.”

On the album “Western Stars,” the tune is poignant. Yet during the sublime concert film of the same name, the song becomes still more affecting as we watch Bruce, who’s now 70, add a stronger, harder undercurrent of cautious hope.

That kind of chemistry emerges often in “Western Stars,” which Springsteen directed with Thom Zimny. Bruce performs the album’s 13 songs (and one encore) with a band, an orchestra and a small audience all together in close quarters — an old barn on the singer’s property in New Jersey.

Fans eager for the electricity of Springsteen’s stadium shows should readjust their expectations. The energy here is controlled, the mood reflective. These character-driven songs are populated by the washed-up and the run-down — an aging actor, a hitchhiker — and the shared themes are remembrance and regret.

Springsteen sings with little flourish under soft yet precise lighting, and with editing that keeps each shot in place for just the right amount of time. Between songs, he offers thoughts and memories (though some images can be a tad too wistful, and few of his notions are as insightful as those in his recent book and Broadway show ). The interludes, taped separately at Joshua Tree National Park in California, feature photos and film footage, and like the album, evoke the mythic American West.

“Everybody’s broken in some way,” Springsteen says in one of those moments. Yet the emotions here never turn too bleak. That’s because his characters press on, mending themselves again and again. With such determination, no story can ever be entirely sad.

Western Stars

Rated PG. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes.

Review: Bruce Springsteen’s poignant ‘Western Stars’ provides a guide to the damaged soul

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Concert films, even the good ones, can all too often seem like adjuncts in a creative life, while music videos often just act as commercials, and biodocs typically signal a career at the end or in need of a push. Can a movie headlining a musician ever be its own special contribution to the oeuvre?

The performance film “Western Stars” feels like that for rock superstar Bruce Springsteen, who’s been in something of a reflective yet still artistic mind-set for a few years now, having excelled at memoir ( 2016’s “Born to Run” ), and reinforced his legendary live chops by way of a powerfully autobiographical Broadway show . Now he’s taken the reins as a movie director (alongside regular film collaborator Thom Zimny ) for a visual companion to his recently released, same-named album — an elegiac song cycle of brokenness and love inspired by the mythic pull of Southern California’s open spaces, sundowns and cowboy mind-set — that in its intimacy and honesty plays as if this is the way these songs were always meant to be enjoyed.

In this case, that means in an old, cathedral-like barn with a band (not E Street) and a strings-and-horns orchestra, in front of a small crowd, with his wife Patti Scialfa often playing right alongside him. And in between each of the 13 searching new songs are fragments filmed on dusty roads, picturesque deserts (that’s Joshua Tree) or lonely inside spaces, in which Springsteen’s rich growl speaks to the inspiration for each memorably crafted tale of hard-bitten, inward-looking souls, like the title tune’s narrator, who tells us, “I wake up in the morning, just glad my boots are on.”

Having forged a richly poetic career out of anxious down-and-outers itching to escape their lives — if they even know what they want — Springsteen’s new tunes take the notion of the West as a freedom seeker’s destination and explore what happens when there’s nowhere left to go but backward, to relive old pains and regrets as a way of finding a mindful peace. His cracked exiles include a faded western star, a battered stuntman and a failed songwriter. The weary figure singing “Hello Sunshine” recalls how the open road once held so much, but now, hungry for something like a grounding love, he realizes, “miles to go is miles away.”

In the opening montage of horses and morning light, with the man himself dressed like an old ranch hand, Springsteen describes the songs as “a meditation on the struggle between individual freedom and communal life.” But in the concert scenes, watching him in this evocatively lit, rustic space — his raggedy rock star light dialed down to a burnished troubadour glow — he masterfully strides both qualities: solitary storyteller and bandleader. He can make you believe he’s the only one on stage — as during the bleakly stock-taking “Somewhere North of Nashville” — but he can also turn to the string section during a sweeping, Jimmy Webb-like stretch of symphonic melody like the one in “The Wayfarer” and give a look to a pair of energetic cellists that says, yeah, we’re all jammin’ here.

The spoken interludes, which touch on love, character and life lessons, are where Springsteen , who recently turned 70, adds personal context, talking about his own darkness, failings and the rocky wisdom that comes with age and family. This leads naturally to a feeling that “Western Stars” the film — in the occasional home movie snippet featuring his wife, or tender vibe when they share a microphone — is also a nod to the healing love and stability he’s found with Scialfa.

It makes for a poignancy when the song is a widower’s wistful tale (the quietly aching “Moonlight Motel”), as if the strength to sing something so sad is only possible with her there, too. By the end, you almost want every recording artist with Springsteen’s compassion and lyricism to introduce their newest material the way he does in “Western Stars,” like a docent of everyone’s damaged soul, pointing to the parts that make not just the music, but the musician, too.

'Western Stars'

Rated: PG, for some thematic elements, alcohol and smoking images, and brief language Running time: 1 hour, 23 minutes Playing: In general release

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‘Western Stars’ Is Part Concert Film, Part Visual Album, All Springsteen

By David Fear

Listen to the opening track of Bruce Springsteen’s Western Stars , the album he put out this past May, and you’ll hear someone bragging about “hitch-hikin’ all day long.” He accepts a ride from a man and his pregnant wife; then he grabs a lift from someone else, just a guy free to heed the call of the open road. Two cuts later, on a song called “Tucson Train,” we get a different tale — maybe he’s a new protagonist; maybe he’s the same romantic drifter of “Hitch Hikin'” and a hundred other Springsteen tracks — who had lost his way and lost and his true love. But now he’s settled down, he’s ready to be part of society, he’s watching that 5:15 train bringing his baby to him to show up. (It takes a lot to laugh, etc.)

There are 11 more tunes, some of which are country-tinged ballads and others that are Seventies SoCal symphony pop. But you could argue that the whole story is there in those two tracks. The dude who was born to run. The man who’s finally ready to earn and embrace the human touch.

Should you still be unsure at what he’s getting at, Springsteen spells it out as plain as can be in the beginning of Western Stars, the concert film-cum-visual album he and longtime collaborator/codirector Thom Zimny premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on Thursday night. (It hits theaters October 25th.) His collection of songs about road warriors and B-movie actors, beat-up stuntmen and places where truckers and bikers drink together, is a look at “the two sides of the American character…individual freedom and communal life.” He says this over panoramic shots that turn the record’s cover of a running mustang into a literal motion picture, interspersed with clips of home movies. A close-up details a hand on a pickup’s steering wheel, ready to skeedaddle. The shot is repeated 90 or so mins later, with another hand now resting tenderly on top of the original one. This is the journey Springsteen wants you take here. It’s the same one, he notes, that he’s been taking over the last 35 years.

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After releasing this solo project, the songwriter knew he wasn’t going to support the record with a tour . Still, he wanted to do something to, in his words, “get this music live to an audience.” Springsteen came up with the idea of playing the whole thing start to finish, then capture the event on film for posterity. He and Zimny, the filmmaker behind dozens of Bruce-related music videos and making-of-album docs, started to scout locations; they eventually settled on the top floor of the barn on Springsteen’s property. (“We dressed the space up quite a bit,” he admitted in a Q&A after an afternoon press screening.) The notion was to put on an intimate show “for a few friends, and to entertain the horses.” Just a small crowd, a honkytonk-style bar, a scrappy band buffered by an orchestral section, and a singer with a guitar.

And as a performance film, Western Stars is a pitch-perfect example of why this music needed to be played and heard live. On record, you can feel Springsteen working his way through some uncharacteristic styles: Jimmy Webb-style C&W lite, Brian Wilson’s baroque pop, Everly Brothers-like crooning, musical arrangements that wouldn’t be out of place on an old Harry Nilsson joint (listen to that gossamer shuffle that opens up “Hello Sunshine” and tell me you don’t expect the first line to be “Everybody’s talkin’ at me…”). Seeing him take on those songs on a stage, however, and you get the sense he owns all of it now — he’s turned all of these influences into a seamless Springsteen sound. A number of the cuts open up like an oxygenated bottle of wine, whether it’s because there’s a gaggle of string players or a single partner in crime — the interplay between him and wife/guitarist Patti Scialfa on “Stones” deepens the cut substantially — bringing something else out of him.

But what you see in the live versions is the sum of these parts as one cohesive whole. He’s a singer in sync with the musical community surrounding him, a concept as thematically on point with the album as possible. (Thankfully, the soundtrack to the film will also be released, which means you’ll get Springsteen & Co.’s gorgeous cover of Glenn Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” — an impromptu coda that, Zimny says, he didn’t know Bruce was going to do. The fact that a cameraman was nearby and quickly caught it was a stroke of luck.) Those moments share screen time with free-form scenes of Bruce wandering alone through the California desert near Joshua Tree, offering comments on both the songs and his own struggle to reconcile his stoic loner and loving husband/father sides. There are stoic poses galore, as well old clips of scruffy young Springsteen and rare Super 8 films of his honeymoon with Scialfa that Zimny found buried in the archives.

Watch the Trailer for Bruce Springsteen’s Concert Film ‘Western Stars’

Bruce springsteen sets out for wide open territory on 'western stars'.

Sometimes he cracks wise (“Nineteen albums, and I’m still writing about cars”). Sometimes he goes into saloon-philosopher mode, offering the sort of deep thoughts (“Walk on through the dark, because that’s where the next morning is”) that longtime fans will tell you are part of the ride when you pay for the ticket. All of it seems part of the self-reflective phase Springsteen has been going through over the past few years; he admitted in the Q&A that the movie is the last part of “a story I haven’t really told before” that includes his 2016 memoir Born to Run and his 2018 Broadway residency. Introspection suits him, especially if this is the kind of art we’re getting from him now. He’d hoped the film would help people understand a little better what the songs were getting at. Mission accomplished.

But Western Stars isn’t a therapy session. It’s a portrait of lightning momentarily bottled, the way all great concert movies are. It’s the pleasure of watching a guy who’s been doing this for 50-plus years find yet another way to make it fresh without abandoning what made it great in the first place. And it’s also a personal look at someone working it out through his music, looking to find a sense of peace in the spotlight and realizing, with a sigh of relief, that he’s actually found it.

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Western Stars Reviews

Bruce Springsteen's filmic love letter to his latest album is sweet and spellbinding, if a little contrived at times.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 23, 2021

Western Stars is an intimate performance with great music, lyrical soul-searching and a restless spirit that suggests Springsteen is mining his baggage to create vital, beautiful new art.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 31, 2021

It's a rockin' great time in Bruce's barn, one that leaves you feeling just that little more inspired and contented than when you first entered the cinema, proving to be as smooth and warming as a shot of mighty fine Tequila.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 28, 2020

In Western Stars, [Bruce] continues to explore his self-destructive impulses and the emotions they inspire.

Full Review | Aug 14, 2020

Western Stars is deeply invested in The Myth of Bruce Springsteen, as though he's invited the audience into his barn, but not into his heart.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jun 19, 2020

Bruce Springsteen is THE BOSS, but this Western Stars documentary makes him a legend.

Full Review | Dec 25, 2019

Shot at [Bruce's] barn in New Jersey among friends and family, the setting is so intimate it feels you received your very own invitation.

Full Review | Dec 12, 2019

Western Stars isn't going to break the music documentary mold, and there are some interstitial segments that are honestly downright cheesy, but if you're a Springsteen fan, you should find plenty to love about it.

Full Review | Nov 13, 2019

The performance footage is mesmerising, as Springsteen articulates the intimacy of lyrics imbued with themes of a mythic West, despite sharing the stage with a full electric band and a 30-piece orchestra.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 11, 2019

We can stare at his iconic Boss pose - sturdy, bent-kneed, poised like a hood ornament into the wind... but like the music itself, it feels a little too smooth, a little too contrived and just a teensy bit cheesy to embrace on a deeply personal level.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 10, 2019

Each song is performed live in the film, and each song is set up with a short video narrated by Springsteen explaining the inspiration for each song. This movie is as much about Springsteen the man, as it is about Springsteen, the performer.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Nov 8, 2019

Boss, I never should have doubted you.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Nov 2, 2019

A captivating musical experience brought to the screen that expresses both the nature of Bruce Springsteen and the meaning behind his album Western Stars.

Full Review | Nov 1, 2019

Who says you can't teach an old Boss new tricks?

The overly scripted interludes clash with the authenticity of the show, which is plenty strong on its own.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 31, 2019

It defies the parameters of cinema to create a transfixing work of exceptional elegance.

Full Review | Oct 31, 2019

It's the cutaways between songs that stitch it all together with an emotional thread that charts its subject's struggles over the decades.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 29, 2019

The result is truly cherishable, especially if you're a fan, but maybe even if you're not - because it's hard not to be beguiled by Bruce's charisma, his heartfelt, melancholic meditations on life, and of course his sound.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 28, 2019

A lovely film that delves deep into the history of Bruce [Springsteen], particularly his young life.

Full Review | Oct 28, 2019

The songs fit snugly in the Springsteen canon, as they're populated with the gristle of American life.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Oct 28, 2019

Warner Bros.

Summary Springsteen’s first studio album in five years, Western Stars marks a departure for the legendary singer/songwriter while still drawing on his roots. Touching on themes of love and loss, loneliness and family and the inexorable passage of time, the documentary film evokes the American West—both the mythic and the hardscrabble—weaving ar ... Read More

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Directed By : Bruce Springsteen, Thom Zimny

Western Stars

Where to watch, patti scialfa.

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‘Western Stars’ Film Review: Bruce Springsteen Gets Introspective in Beautiful Performance Film

Toronto Film Festival 2019: Borrowing from the imagery of his recent album of the same name, the film directed by Springsteen and Thom Zimny is both an intimate concert film and a series of musings on solitude and community

The film begins with an aerial shot of a wide-open desert plain, with wild horses running free. There’s an old barn, a car, a weathered hand sporting turquoise jewelry grasping a steering wheel, a silhouette of a man in a cowboy hat.

That’s not the way you would normally think of Bruce Springsteen introducing himself — but “Western Stars,” which had its world premiere on Thursday at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, is not a normal Bruce Springsteen film. Borrowing from the imagery of his recent album of the same name, it’s both an intimate concert film and a series of musings on solitude and community in song and story.

And if it places New Jersey’s rock ‘n’ roll poet laureate in a different setting from most of his work, it is wholly true to the spirit of a remarkable artist who has spent the last few decades grappling with personal demons and being open about his search for peace and refuge.

The film, which will be released by Warner Bros. in October, is essential viewing for Springsteen fans, of course (and I am in that camp, of course), but it has the grace and humanity to connect outside his devoted fan base as well.

“Western Stars” goes far deeper than the usual performance document, to sensitively explore what he sees as the state of his, and our, lives. It’s a ruminative, almost elegiac look at Springsteen’s life and career, filled with moments of uncommon beauty that makes it of a piece with this latest, most introspective phase of his career.

“Everybody’s broken in some way,” he says at one point. “In this life, nobody gets away unhurt… We’re always trying to find somebody whose broken pieces fit with our broken pieces, and something whole emerges.”

Over the past decade, Springsteen has released a string of full-length films to accompany his albums, but most have been either concert performances or making-of documentaries — and until now, most of them have been credited solely to Springsteen’s longtime collaborator, director Thom Zimny. But “Western Stars” is even more of a collaboration, sporting Springsteen’s name alongside Zimny as co-director.

(The two men also share the directing credit on 2014’s 10-minute short “Hunter of Invisible Game,” which fashioned a Cormac McCarthy-style post-apocalyptic scenario around a Springsteen song.)

Together, Springsteen and Zimny take a deep dive into the “Western Stars” album, which on the surface might have seemed an odd choice for that kind of treatment. When Springsteen put out the album in June, it was immediately clear that he’d turned the rather remarkable trick of making a completely singular record almost 50 years deep in his recording career.

Like very few of his other albums — the improvisational sprawl of 1973’s “The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle” and the raucous folk of 2006’s “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions” come to mind, but not much else — “Western Stars” seems to stand alone in style and feel.

It also seemed at the time to be a departure for the man who’d spent the last couple of years fashioning and performing his Broadway show, “Springsteen on Broadway.” That project was the most personal thing Springsteen had ever done, a startlingly intense and intimate evening of songs and stories that drew direct connections between his life and his work.

“Western Stars,” on the other hand, felt like one of the least personal things Springsteen had done. The songs, with their country influences and with arrangements drawn from Los Angeles pop of the late ’60s and early ’70s, told the stories of characters adrift in the West: A hitchhiker, a long-haul truck driver, a fading star of Western movies, a stuntman, a failed country songwriter.

Springsteen has long explored his own issues through working-class characters, but the lives he depicts in the “Western Stars” songs felt like people from another world; the album was lovely, but on the surface it didn’t seem to say much about the man who made it, other than that he loved the records Glen Campbell made with Jimmy Webb and wanted to try his hand at that kind of thing.

But “Western Stars,” the film, shatters that take on “Western Stars,” the album. It is built around a performance of the complete album that took place in the hayloft of a 140-year-old barn on Springsteen’s property in New Jersey. Together with a 30-piece orchestra that includes strings, horns and five singers arranged by Springsteen’s wife, Patti Scialfa, the performances capture the lushness of the album but also bear down harder, making the songs a little rougher and a little sharper.

“It’s a place filled with the best kind of ghosts and spirits,” Springsteen says of the barn, and his performance lets those spirits come out to play.

In between the album’s 13 songs, Springsteen talks. In a way, this pulls “Western Stars” into the “Springsteen on Broadway” universe, making it a combination of intimate live performances linked by monologues that make personal connections between the work and the man who made it.

But Springsteen isn’t talking to the camera or to an audience, and for the most part he’s not telling anecdotes about his life – instead, he’s talking about the emotional roots of the songs and the characters on the “Western Stars” album, which he calls “a 13-song meditation on the struggle between individual freedom and communal life.”

Heard in voiceover while the camera gives quick glimpses of Bruce in the bar, Bruce on the ranch, Bruce in the car, Springsteen can sometimes sound a little stilted. But there’s no mistaking the depth of feeling he brings to this work, in which an array of characters stand in for his own struggles to stop running away, to stop hurting the people in his life, to embrace his better angels.

The songs and the stories nudge “Western Stars” to life as a moving chronicle of a man who will turn 70 later this month. “The older you get, the heavier that baggage becomes that you haven’t sorted through,” he says, making it clear that the album and the movie is part of that sorting-through.

Musically expansive and emotionally telling, “Western Stars” works through the album’s pain and hurt until it finds refuge in “Hello Sunshine,” the song that insists on fashioning a happy ending. “A love song … is the redemption of your heart,” he says. “We drive out of the darkness into sunshine and love.”

It makes for a lovely benediction, and he follows it with some goofy home movies of himself and Scialfa, and then with a performance of the album closer, “Moonlight Motel.” By this point, the small audience has left and the barn is empty, and Springsteen takes a song that sounds lonely on the album and claims it for love and beauty.

But it wouldn’t be a Bruce Springsteen performance without an encore, so Bruce and the band send us home with a cover version of a hit from Glen Campbell, whose songs from the 1960s and ’70s helped inspire “Western Stars.”

I won’t reveal which Glen Campbell song it is, except to say it’s one of the last ones I would want to hear. But it’s great anyway, and one more surprise in a film that finds new dimensions to the work of an essential artist.

Western Stars Review

28 Oct 2019

Western Stars

You don’t get a Bruce Springsteen movie forever and then two come along at once. Following Gurinder Chadha ’s love-letter to The Boss, Blinded By The Light , that riffed on Springsteen’s back-catalogue, Western Stars delivers the latest cuts. Co-directed by Springsteen and regular filmmaking collaborator Thom Zimny (who also directed Springsteen On Broadway ), it’s a companion piece to Springsteen’s recent studio album that manages to transcend the standard concert film or DVD extra by augmenting the music with short films that tie the songs together, translate Springsteen’s world into cinematic language and provide deeper insight into the man himself.

Unable to take an album that features a 30-piece orchestra on the road, Springsteen decided to put a live performance of the album on film at his 100-year-old barn on his Colts Neck property in New Jersey filled, according to Springsteen, with “ghosts and spirits”.

The 13-song album tackles the dynamic between individual freedom and communal life (“the two impulses run against each other in everyday America”) and sees Springsteen back on his musical bullshit, singing about hitchhiking, pictures of pretty girls on the dashboard (“This is my 19th album, and I’m still writing about cars!” he quips), rocking out on Saturday night at a roadside café and pouring his personal demons into mini narratives about an ageing cowboy actor who is down but not out (“Once I was shot by John Wayne/Yeah it was towards the end/That one scene’s bought me a thousand drinks”) or a broken stuntman in a song that might have played over the end credits of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood .

It’s not a film about ‘Springsteen’ or ‘The Boss’, it’s a film about Bruce from New Jersey.

Influenced by the Californian pop of Jimmy Webb or Burt Bacharach, the results are sweeping, melancholy and magical. It’s also an album and gig about love lost and found, epic and intimate at the same time. ‘There Goes My Miracle’, a moving duet with wife Patti Scialfa, sees Zimny’s camera capturing the intimacy between the singers and the unspoken communication with the band.

In between each song we get a series of short-tone poems, with Springsteen ruminating on the autobiographical links and thematic ideas raised by the songs. Structurally it gets repetitive and the revelations never get specific or juicy but there’s stuff here — the sense of regret and self rebuke — that deepens your relationship to the singer and the songs. The voiceover is accompanied by films (evocatively scored by Springsteen) consisting of slow-motion footage of horses, Springsteen in Joshua Tree country or driving in a pick-up truck — the poetry of Springsteen’s America.

Perhaps the best moment features some home-movie footage of Springsteen and Patti on honeymoon, clowning around in front of a log cabin surrounded by booze. Surprising and candid, it grounds Springsteen as a character in his own songs and speaks to the intimacy to the whole film. Ultimately it’s not a film about ‘Springsteen’ or ‘The Boss’, it’s a film about Bruce from New Jersey. And that’s what makes Western Stars so valuable.

Movies | 25 10 2019

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Movie Reviews

Springsteen concert film 'western stars' sheds no new light.

Chris Klimek

Bruce Springsteen brings his new album to the silver screen in the concert movie, Western Skies. Rob DeMartin/Warner Bros. Pictures hide caption

Bruce Springsteen brings his new album to the silver screen in the concert movie, Western Skies.

Newly-minted septuagenarian Bruce Springsteen has been firmly in legacy mode ever since he took that long knee-slide across the stage at the Super Bowl XLIII halftime show a decade ago.

To hear him tell it, not long after his then-59-year-old crotch smooshed up against the camera lens as 97.4 million viewers watched helplessly, he began writing what became his 2016 memoir Born to Run. In the book, he was newly candid about his struggles with depression, and how a skinny longhair who "never saw the inside of a factory" dreamt up the persona of working-class humility and gentle masculinity that the world has known for 40-odd years as The Boss. He then adapted the book into a Tony Award-winning solo play and Netflix special. A few years earlier, he'd begun releasing low-cost recordings of concerts from throughout his career via his website — a curatorial gesture from a legendary performer whose gigs had always been widely bootlegged.

Legacy mode.

So what to make of Western Stars, the new sight-track to his first record of all-new material since that knee slide? Initially conceived as a concert film intended to take the place of a tour supporting Western Stars -the-album, Springsteen and longtime videographer Thom Zimny (who here shares directing credit with The Boss for the first time) elected during the editing process to expand its scope. The spine of the film remains the 14-song concert; Springsteen fronting a 30-piece orchestra in a hundred-year-old barn on his New Jersey horse farm, doing all the Western Stars numbers plus a dead-earnest cover of "Like a Rhinestone Cowboy" — a hit for Glen Campbell in the same year that Born to Run (the album, not the book) landed a 25-year-old Springsteen on the covers of Time and Newsweek .

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All he wanted was to be free: where bruce springsteen's 'western stars' came from.

Bruce Springsteen Channels Roy Orbison In 'There Goes My Miracle'

It's the collective half-hour of interstitial material that's more suspect. We get drone-shot aerial footage of horses running free in Jersey and in Joshua Tree, voiceover that can't help but feel more portentous than the spoken introductions that might've accompanied these songs on stage, and typical music-video slo-mo stuff of The Boss driving his mid-century pickup truck along that dusty plain, hobbling into the barn, vamoosing down that lonesome old trail. I'm Bruce Springsteen, the movie says whenever its star isn't actually speaking, and I approved this message .

Springsteen has said he considers Western Stars- the-Movie to be the third part of a trilogy comprising Born to Run and Springsteen on Broadway . The difference is that this time he's reflecting on his life through songs he wrote in his late sixties, instead of recontextualizing ones he wrote in (primarily) his twenties and thirties. And because so many of the Western Stars songs are written in character, there's some grinding of the gears when he shifts into plain talk about his own emotionally self-destructive tendencies. "For a long time, if I loved you, I'd hurt you if I could," isn't a lyric; it's just a thing he tells us. The weathered sound of his speaking voice is often more expressive than the platitudes he's intoning, which rarely tell us anything he hasn't said more eloquently in song.

As is so often the case with concert films, the best stuff is the least premeditated stuff: There's what looks like camcorder-shot footage of Springsteen and his longtime spouse/longer-time bandmate Patti Scialfa (who sings and plays guitar in the concert portion) clowning around together that probably dates from around the time they were married, in 1991. This is the most moving footage in the film because of its modesty; it was never intended for public exhibition, and it looks candid and true.

As for the musical performances, they're strong but not revelatory in the way Springsteen's live interpretations of his songs so often have been. That's because what's often most rewarding about the concert experience — especially with an artist who has such a deep catalog to draw upon — is discovering how the new songs complement selected old ones, and how rearranging songs for the stage can reveal elements that got buffed out of their studio incarnations. Contemporary recording technology offers musicians an unlimited number of choices, and many of them reconsider those choices when it's time to take those songs on the road.

But hiring an orchestra and confining the set list to the new songs means the live arrangements here are often indistinguishable the ones on Western Stars -the-album, and we don't hear anything from the Springsteen catalog reinterpreted for this lush 30-piece idiom. Springsteen's E Street-band-less tours behind The Ghost of Tom Joad in mid-90s and The Seeger Sessions a decade later foregrounded the songs from those records but also reinterpreted his older work in a way that made it feel renewed. Western Stars doesn't offer those kinds of discoveries.

For those inclined to view Springsteen as a preening poseur, Western Stars will be as laughable as anything in This Is Spinal Tap or Popstar. But even casual fans are unlikely to seek out as niche an item as Western Stars, the movie of the album, for which this there also a separate soundtrack recording available. And for Springsteen diehards — I'm raising my hand now — this is not the rich visual expansion of a very good album that its author hoped to make. It's too late to get Jonathan Demme to cinematize The River, sadly, but you could still talk to Terrence Malick about doing Nebraska. Or take a meeting with Paul Schrader and John Sayles about Born in the U.S.A. Think it over, Boss. Your legacy is too important for you to direct it yourself.

Bruce Springsteen

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Movies | ‘western stars’ review: bruce springsteen documentary proves he still shines brightly.

It’s Bruce singing about a love — a miracle — that was lost (“There goes my miracle, walking away, walking away …”), and what’s implicit is that the singer knows it was his fault that the miracle is walking; it’s what he did, or failed to do. The music is transcendent; the rise and fall of the melody expresses the faith and despair that love can bring. And Bruce, standing there in the burnished glow of his barn, croons it with an open-hearted fragility that’s even more moving than it was on the studio version. The yearn in his voice, the crinkle of his eye, tells you: He knows this loss.

In “Western Stars,” Springsteen strums a red C&W acoustic guitar, with Patti Scialfa, his partner of 30 years (they were married in 1991), standing at the microphone next to him, with a band behind him (piano, steel guitar, the trademark Springsteen glockenspiel), and, to his right, a 30-piece orchestra made up mostly of strings. (For some reason, all the violinists are women.) Bruce is dressed in a black work shirt, black jeans, and cowboy boots, and with his earrings, his sculptured coif, and his features that are now so lean and ruggedly lived-in that he looks like a rock ‘n’ roll Marlboro Man, the 69-year-old legend is the picture of finely aged well-being. He and Patti had three kids (now grown), and as he pointed out with a self-deprecating chuckle in his one-man show “Springsteen on Broadway,” after all his songs about cars and the open road and freedom in the night, he wound up living a stone’s throw from where he grew up.

The image of Bruce the once wild and woolly, now domesticated rock star is, in its way, a contented one. Yet Springsteen would probably be the first to acknowledge that an image is what it is. At one point he jokes, “This is my 19th album, and I’m still writing about cars!” In “Western Stars,” he takes a page from “Springsteen on Broadway,” telling stories about the stories he tells, and doing it with a disarming directness. He never gets too specific about personal details, but he’s eloquent enough to let us read between the lines, and what the carefully written song intros suggest is that Bruce battled his share of demons not just in the tumultuous rock-god chapter of his life when he met and fell in love with Patti, and broke up his first marriage, but after he got together with Patti.

“I’ve spent 35 years trying to let go of the destruction parts of my character,” he says, owning up to the compulsion he had to take the people he loved and cause them pain. Is he speaking of Patti? We can guess the answer is yes, and can speculate as to how he might have betrayed her. But the point is that we don’t need the gossipy details. We can imagine them, and Bruce’s mournful gravity tells us that the demons were serious.

In “Western Stars,” Springsteen spins his confessions into a beautiful and haunting tone poem, yet he remains every inch a showman. He co-directed the movie himself, along with his longtime music-video and film collaborator Thom Zimny (who also directed “Springsteen on Broadway”), and what they’ve done it to break up the 83-minute movie into sections framed by images of Bruce in the Joshua Tree desert, riding pickups and wandering trails with wild horses. It’s a version of the mythological Bruce — but what we hear on the soundtrack is the introspective Bruce, letting us know that his struggles are ours.

“Western Stars” is set to open Friday on 375 screens , and it represents something I’d love to see more of: a wide-release concert film featuring an artist from the age of classic pop stardom. “Western Stars” isn’t a rockin’-out extravaganza; it’s intimate in its embrace. Yet it’s a moving testament to how much Bruce Springsteen has still got it. It’s a concert film you’ll want to experience with others, as a ray of light in the dark.

“Western Stars” — 3 stars

MPAA rating : PG (for some thematic elements, alcohol and smoking images, and brief language)

Running time : 1:13

Opens : Friday

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Western stars, common sense media reviewers.

Moving Springsteen concert movie about reflection, change.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Movie is deeply introspective and philosophical, r

Springsteen may be something of a role model, not

Springsteen describes himself, in his younger year

Couple kisses in old film footage.

A use of "bulls--t," use of "damn."

Frequent mentions and depictions of drinking, both

Positive Messages

Movie is deeply introspective and philosophical, rarely hitting on any concrete lessons but describing things like how hard it is to trust and to love and how easy it is to fall back on hurt. Addresses the work it takes to learn from your mistakes and find your "better angels."

Positive Role Models

Springsteen may be something of a role model, not only as a successful and accomplished musician but also as someone who's worked hard to improve and learn for decades.

Violence & Scariness

Springsteen describes himself, in his younger years, as "destructive." "If I loved you, I would hurt you," he says. (This is implied as emotional hurt, rather than physical hurt.) Song lyric about being "shot by John Wayne." Song about a stuntman, with lyrics "drive fast, fall hard."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Frequent mentions and depictions of drinking, both social (in bars) and alone and involving spirits of all kinds (beer, whiskey, tequila, gin, etc.). The barn where the concert takes place includes a bar, and spectators are shown with drinks on their tables. Springsteen drinks a shot before the show starts. A song lyric says "tired of the pills." Mentions of "Viagra." People smoking cigars, cigarettes in old film footage.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Western Stars is a concert film featuring Bruce Springsteen performing the entirety of his same-named 2019 album. It's aching, introspective, and intimate, evoking the American West but also the human condition, and it's a must-see for tween music fans and up. Expect frequent depictions and descriptions of drinking. Characters drink socially in bars and sometimes alone in song lyrics; the drinks range from beer to tequila, whiskey, and gin. Kissing and smoking are shown in vintage footage, Viagra is mentioned, and a song lyric references "pills." Another song lyric mentions being "shot by John Wayne," and Springsteen describes his "destructive" past in which he would "hurt people," though apparently emotionally rather than physically. Language includes a use of "bulls--t" and a use of "damn." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 1 parent review

Springsteen shows the next generation why he's still the Boss

What's the story.

In WESTERN STARS, musician Bruce Springsteen assembles a 30-piece orchestra, along with his backing band and backup singers, in the century-old barn on his property in northern New Jersey. In front of a small audience, they perform the 13 songs from Springsteen's 2019 album Western Stars , plus an encore. In between numbers, Springsteen tells stories of how each song -- based in memories, hurt, reflection, and perseverance -- came to be.

Is It Any Good?

At age 70, Springsteen forgoes his more typical, invigorating concert experience for an intimate, reflective live show; it's achingly beautiful, tender, and personal, with strains of regret and hope. Marking Springsteen's directorial debut alongside Thom Zimny, Western Stars could rank with the best concert films ever made, with its combination of wonderful songs and touching orchestration and Springsteen's confessional asides. The songs are surprisingly moving; they're great stories of everyday Americans, but -- rather than having the heart-pumping energy of Springsteen's early work -- these songs are wistful and quiet, looking back to find a way to look forward. It's possibly one of the best collections in the singer's career.

In the interludes, Springsteen talks about the songs (he says he doesn't know why he keeps writing songs about cars) and about the characters in the songs -- such as an old cowboy actor -- and how they're based on his own feelings and discoveries. He talks about his former destructive behaviors and how he's worked to put them behind him. He talks about how everyone has "broken pieces," and how, maybe, we might find someone whose broken pieces fit with our own. Western Stars evokes cowboy imagery, certainly, but it's also romantic and philosophical. Springsteen seems to understand the human condition, and, after spending this time with him, we feel a little bit of peace.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Western Stars ' depiction of alcohol/drinking . Does the movie glamorize it? Are there consequences? Why does that matter?

What does Springsteen mean when he talks about his "destructive" days? How did he address this situation?

Why, as Springsteen says, is it so hard for humans to trust and love and so easy for them to embrace pain?

Are the subjects that Springsteen sings and talks about at age 70 applicable to younger people? Why or why not?

How do concert films compare with live concerts? Which other concert films have you seen?

Movie Details

In theaters : October 25, 2019
On DVD or streaming : December 19, 2019
Cast : Bruce Springsteen , Patti Scialfa
Directors : Bruce Springsteen , Thom Zimny
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Warner Bros.
Genre : Documentary
Topics : Music and Sing-Along
Run time : 83 minutes
MPAA rating : PG
MPAA explanation : some thematic elements, alcohol and smoking images, and brief language
Last updated : June 2, 2023

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Western Stars

By Hunter Lanier | October 28, 2019

To hammer home his most recent album, Western Stars , Bruce Springsteen has co-directed—with Thom Zimny—his own concert film of the same name. It’s a live performance of the album in its entirety, performed on the second story of Springsteen’s 19th-century barn, with a stable of very lucky horses just beneath the stage.

That’s as good a place as any for Springsteen to give his new album a little elbow room to speak its mind. The songs fit snugly in the Springsteen canon, as they’re populated with the gristle of American life. At first glance, the most striking difference is that his misfits are a little bit older now, with less time in front of them to make things right. Between performances, there are these interludes where Springsteen prefaces each song like a DJ while you’re assaulted by robustly cinematic footage—horses running in slow motion, sun flares, and plenty of silhouettes. Springsteen, the writer, may not be as gifted as the previous links in that American road poet chain, but the lineage is deeply felt through his ruminations on rebels, drifters, and knowing when to settle down.

“…a live performance of the album in its entirety, performed on the second story of Springsteen’s 19th-century barn…”

At the beginning of the movie, Springsteen says that the American character is torn between the need to be free and the need to be communal—the open road and the fireplace, in other words. There’s a lot of truth in that, though—as Springsteen hints at himself—it seems that the need for freedom has quieted. The car, he says, is no longer the symbol of independence that it used to be, must less the road. People are looking down rather than into the distance. Western Stars is very much a tip of the hat to an attitude and way of carrying yourself that could be considered archaic at the moment but is as luring as ever.

When it comes to the performances themselves, they’re as good as it gets. The music is given second, third, and fourth lives as it bounces off the aged insides of the barn. Each performance is filmed in a modest, but hypnotizing way, confident enough in the performance itself to forgo any frills. And, thank Christ, there’s not a single reaction shot of the crowd. Nobody wants to see a stocky guy in a polo meaningfully bobbing his head.

Western Stars is more than a concert film that gets slid into a special edition release of an album. It tells its own little story about Springsteen and the characters that stumble around his head, though they come across less like creations and more like fractured pieces of a single personality. Whereas Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story captured Dylan’s penchant for eluding the audience—leaving behind false trails that lead to dead ends— Western Stars gives the always plainspoken Springsteen a new venue to put it all out there. And most of it is good stuff.

Western Stars (2019)

Directed and Written: Bruce Springsteen, Thom Zimny

Starring: Bruce Springsteen, Patti Scialfa, etc.

Movie score: 8/10

"…The songs fit snugly in the Springsteen canon, as they’re populated with the gristle of American life."

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‘Western Stars’ Film Review: Bruce Springsteen Gets Introspective in Beautiful Performance Film

Also Read: Bruce Springsteen Reflects on His Life in Wistful 'Western Stars' Trailer (Video)

Also Read: 'Blinded by the Light' Film Review: Joyous Indie Musical Soars to Songs of Bruce Springsteen

(The two men also share the directing credit on 2014’s 10-minute short “Hunter of Invisible Game,” which fashioned a Cormac McCarthy-style post-apocalyptic scenario around a Springsteen song.)

Also Read: How Bruce Springsteen Kept Director Thom Zimny on His Toes Making 'Springsteen on Broadway'

“It’s a place filled with the best kind of ghosts and spirits,” Springsteen says of the barn, and his performance lets those spirits come out to play.

Read original story ‘Western Stars’ Film Review: Bruce Springsteen Gets Introspective in Beautiful Performance Film At TheWrap

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Where to Stream:

Western Stars

Dad rock is dead. Grandpa rock is the new new. Gen Xers with horn rim glasses revisiting their older brother’s classic rock records? Yesterday’s news. Banjo-fondling douchebags playing “old timey” music? Well, that’s actually Great Grandfather rock and it’s sooooo 2012. What are the big singles of spring 2020? Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. Who’s running for President of the United States? Two dudes in their 70s in possible cognitive decline. Now the freakin’ Boss is here to codify the movement, spinning yarns and life lessons while performing his new album in the film Western Stars , which is currently streaming on HBO .

Released last summer, Springsteen has said his Western Stars album was influenced by the “Southern California pop music of the ’70s,” and such artists as Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb, and Burt Bacharach. Just like grandpa, he gets the dates wrong, as their artistic heyday was the late ’60s, but close enough. “ Western Stars is a 13-song meditation on the struggle between individual freedom and communal life,” he tells us at the film’s outset. To Springsteen, these are the “two sides of the American character,” which, “rub up against one another always and forever everyday in American life.”

Directed by Springsteen and longtime film collaborator Thom Zimny, Western Stars mixes live performances of the album’s songs with footage of the singer wandering around the American West and explaining what it all means. The title track is about a “fading Western film star,” who doesn’t understand the world around him, “doing Viagra commercials and weekend rodeoing in the desert east of Los Angeles.” Another song is about an old stuntman whose self-destructiveness ruins relationships. I guess no one told him about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood .

The performances feature Springsteen, wife Patti Scialfa and a backing band which includes a 30-piece orchestra. They were filmed in a 100-year-old barn on the Springsteens’ property in New Jersey in front of what I assume is an audience of friends. Springsteen tells us, “the hayloft is simply a spiritual place,” one filled with “the best kinds of ghosts and spirits.” A home bar to die for sits against the stage right wall and Springsteen knocks back a shot before he starts playing though the performances are anything but freewheeling. Like the aforementioned influences, these are big songs, straightforward melodically and lyrically and Springsteen and company execute them flawlessly. Maybe, too much so.

Personally, I prefer my Springsteen a little more rocked out with the sweat soaking through his work shirt, a Telecaster slung over his shoulder, and the E Street Band trying to keep up with him. At times the performances seem canned and overly polite. Interestingly, some of the songs remind me not of 1960s Southern California but 1980s Minneapolis, with “The Wayfarer” sounding like Paul Westerberg wrote it and “Tucson Train” echoing Soul Asylum’s 1993 hit, “Runaway Train.” Elsewhere, “Hello Sunshine” quite explicitly pays sonic homage to Glen Campbell ‘s “Gentle On My Mind” and Harry Nilsson ‘s “Everybody’s Talkin'”, which are in keeping with the theme of the album.

While donning a cowboy hat and driving a classic car, Springsteen talks about the flawed men behind each song, many of them, manifestations of himself. Men who hurt the ones they love, drive cars they don’t need, go places to get away from heartache and unhappiness and end up nowhere. This America’s restless word made flesh and the drone footage appropriatly shows us gulches, brambles, rodeos and saloons.

Bruce Springsteen

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As a performance film, Western Stars is capably done, featuring beautifully filmed footage of one of rock’s great talents and a crackerjack backing band fulfilling his orchestral ambitions. The extra-musical segments, however, do little to enhance the experience and it’s not like the material needs any explaining. We’ve heard Springsteen’s tales of failure of redemption, love, and loss before. They’re basically the same story he’s been telling since his first album. But that’s OK. Grandpa’s allowed to repeat himself now and again, and besides, it’s a good story and he tells it well.

Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician. Follow him on Twitter: @BHSmithNYC

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Review: Western Stars

DIR: Bruce Springsteen, Thom Zimmy

Following the Emmy award-winning success of ‘Springsteen on Broadway’ the duo of Thom Zimmy and Bruce Springsteen set off on their next project to create the film Western Stars . The Boss, now 70 years of age, decided not to tour his recent 13-song album of the same name as the concert film, but instead to explore through a cinematic lens the inner workings and inspirations that went on behind the scenes in producing the music of ‘Western Stars’.

The film is set from within Springsteen’s 100-year-old horse barn, turned concert hall, on his and his wife Patti Scialfa’s ranch in New Jersey. The barn itself acts as a spiritual Mecca of inspiration to Springsteen, creating a setting that exudes authenticity. Followed by the meticulous lighting surrounding the exclusively selected patrons of the concert, Joe DeSalvo. the cinematographer and the cameramen, maintains the aura of an intimate venue where the viewer almost feels the need to clap along with the audience as Springsteen transitions from song to song.

Accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra and Scialfa on stage, Springsteen chronologically performs the album and creates this marvellous dichotomy between the eloquence of the orchestral strings and the rustic acoustics of his classic sound. Each song is followed by an interlude in which Springsteen shares his personal memoirs and archival footage from his own life, all in explanation surrounding the song at hand and the reasoning behind it. This formula unfolds for all 13 songs up until the finale where Springsteen indulges both the physical and cinematic audience with an all-time classic.

Thom Zimmy’s directional approach preaches simplicity, which complements the film enormously and reaffirms the purpose in giving this intimate concert to the world through film. The performance and progression of the film is paced like a symphony and Springsteen’s original score takes us subtly from one song to another behind his explanatory monologue. However, the manufactured footage shot for these intermissions between songs, at times, comes across as cliched and repetitive. Such as, the hero shot of Springsteen walking a horse down a stable or driving aimlessly into the sunset in his El Camino. These shots are usually narrated over with rather pious philosophical insights that Springsteen has seemingly come to in his older age. Although these qualities are redeemed in a sense by the nostalgic family footage shared with the audience, giving a greater sense of both Bruce and Patti’s relationship and the events and emotions that predetermined the eventual composing of ‘Western Stars’.

Another disappointing feature Zimmy and Springsteen fail to capture is the raw unadulterated Springsteen and his interactions with the audience and the crew. The film portrays the concert in such a coordinated way that instead of feeling like a member of the audience watching Springsteen live, the viewer is very aware of the fact that they are watching an edited version of Bruce’s performance.

Overall, through Springsteen’s ode to past lovers and metaphorical stuntmen, the complexities of this album are illustrated beautifully through both the stylistic approach Zimmy takes in directing this film and the level of insight Springsteen grants the audience into his life and emotions that inspired this work.

In the end, the film Western Stars comes across as less of an old cowboy’s endeavour into lowbrow philosophical preachings, as it does a homage to the life he led and the love he felt that allowed for this album to come to fruition. A captivating musical experience brought to the screen that expresses both the nature of Bruce Springsteen and the meaning behind his album ‘Western Stars’.

Tiernan Allen

82′ 58″ G (see IFCO for details)

Western Stars is released 28th October 2019

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WESTERN STARS

"an entertaining evening with bruce springsteen".

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

What You Need To Know:

Miscellaneous Immorality: One reference to a woman who broke Bruce’s heart, some references to rebellion and poor role models.

More Detail:

Fans of Bruce Springsteen will love WESTERN STARS, with stories about Bruce interwoven with songs from his newest album. The fans will love the classic, raspy sound of Bruce’s voice. They may also be entertained by the stories Bruce tells. Some stories are about cars. Other, more serious stories are about love and heartbreak. He tells the audience, “This is my 19th album, and I’m still writing about cars,” which he says is a major metaphor for life. Then he asks, “But are we moving forward, or are we just moving?”

It is such nuggets as these that will make Springsteen lovers and newbie fans think about their own lives as they learn more about him in the process. He talks about change. He says he has learned to let go of the destructive parts of himself and be more compassionate towards himself and others and to treat people with the respect they deserve, living life with honor. He also talks about taking his bike up to Santa Monica on Saturday nights and watching people dance from afternoon until night. He also talks about brokenness, and how broken we all are, and also how our fears are closely linked to our ability to risk.

Having said this, fans who want to know more about Springsteen himself, might be a bit disappointed. The documentary tends to focus more on Springsteen’s music than learning about his personal or professional life. The setup in terms of cinematography is different than most documentaries. Most other documentaries focus on the person and interweave music. WESTERN STARS is the exact opposite. About a half hour of the movie is Bruce commenting on different aspects of life, including love, loss, failure, risk, brokenness, etc. The rest is of Bruce singing with an orchestra behind him in a barn type setting and only two cameras covering various shots. There is an audience present, with only small eruptions of applause in between songs. The music is beautifully done, with the addition of violins and other instruments to contribute to this acoustic set of songs.

God is mentioned twice, once within the context of love being evidence of God’s divinity. There’s no mention, however, of Jesus Christ’s sacrificial love. Bruce also talks about being transformed by “hard times and hard thoughts” which is also anti-biblical. Bruce also speaks about our ability to live in community while maintaining our autonomy. Christian viewers will not hear much more about Bruce’s spiritual life in this documentary, only with his experiences with love, loss and change. Faith, hope and trust are referenced generically when Bruce says such things “grows your garden of love.” As Christians, this part of the movie where he talks about how broken we are on this earth will remind us how lucky we are to have a Savior who cares enough to fix our broken pieces, and how hard it is to live life without the Savior.

Bruce also talks about love briefly, about a girl in Jersey who broke his heart, as well as marriage of more than thirty years to Patti Scialfa. It is the impetus for some of the songs he has written over the years, as well as feeling of being “lost,” which should be another reminder of the lostness of those who don’t know Christ. Patti is also featured throughout the movie singing and playing her instrument next to Bruce.

The movie is clean, and appropriate to play in the presence of both young and older children and teens. In fact, with no language, violence or sexual content (with one reference to a girl who broke his heart and his wife), and one scene of drinking, and one reference to drinking, it’s one of the cleanest documentaries and suitable for all ages. As always, parents should exercise caution before they view any movie.

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"Barbie," director and co-writer Greta Gerwig ’s summer splash, is a dazzling achievement, both technically and in tone. It’s a visual feast that succeeds as both a gleeful escape and a battle cry. So crammed with impeccable attention to detail is "Barbie” that you couldn’t possibly catch it all in a single sitting; you’d have to devote an entire viewing just to the accessories, for example. The costume design (led by two-time Oscar winner Jacqueline Durran ) and production design (led by six-time Oscar nominee Sarah Greenwood ) are constantly clever and colorful, befitting the ever-evolving icon, and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (a three-time Oscar nominee) gives everything a glossy gleam. It’s not just that Gerwig & Co. have recreated a bunch of Barbies from throughout her decades-long history, outfitted them with a variety of clothing and hairstyles, and placed them in pristine dream houses. It’s that they’ve brought these figures to life with infectious energy and a knowing wink.

“Barbie” can be hysterically funny, with giant laugh-out-loud moments generously scattered throughout. They come from the insularity of an idyllic, pink-hued realm and the physical comedy of fish-out-of-water moments and choice pop culture references as the outside world increasingly encroaches. But because the marketing campaign has been so clever and so ubiquitous, you may discover that you’ve already seen a fair amount of the movie’s inspired moments, such as the “ 2001: A Space Odyssey ” homage and Ken’s self-pitying ‘80s power ballad. Such is the anticipation industrial complex.

And so you probably already know the basic plot: Barbie ( Margot Robbie ), the most popular of all the Barbies in Barbieland, begins experiencing an existential crisis. She must travel to the human world in order to understand herself and discover her true purpose. Her kinda-sorta boyfriend, Ken ( Ryan Gosling ), comes along for the ride because his own existence depends on Barbie acknowledging him. Both discover harsh truths—and make new friends –along the road to enlightenment. This bleeding of stark reality into an obsessively engineered fantasy calls to mind the revelations of “ The Truman Show ” and “The LEGO Movie,” but through a wry prism that’s specifically Gerwig’s.

This is a movie that acknowledges Barbie’s unrealistic physical proportions—and the kinds of very real body issues they can cause in young girls—while also celebrating her role as a feminist icon. After all, there was an astronaut Barbie doll (1965) before there was an actual woman in NASA’s astronaut corps (1978), an achievement “Barbie” commemorates by showing two suited-up women high-fiving each other among the stars, with Robbie’s Earth-bound Barbie saluting them with a sunny, “Yay, space!” This is also a movie in which Mattel (the doll’s manufacturer) and Warner Bros. (the film’s distributor) at least create the appearance that they’re in on the surprisingly pointed jokes at their expense. Mattel headquarters features a spacious, top-floor conference room populated solely by men with a heart-shaped, “ Dr. Strangelove ”-inspired lamp hovering over the table, yet Will Ferrell ’s CEO insists his company’s “gender-neutral bathrooms up the wazoo” are evidence of diversity. It's a neat trick.

As the film's star, Margot Robbie finds just the right balance between satire and sincerity. She’s the perfect casting choice; it’s impossible to imagine anyone else in the role. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed stunner completely looks the part, of course, but she also radiates the kind of unflagging, exaggerated optimism required for this heightened, candy-coated world. Later, as Barbie’s understanding expands, Robbie masterfully handles the more complicated dialogue by Gerwig and her co-writer and frequent collaborator, filmmaker Noah Baumbach . From a blinding smile to a single tear and every emotion in between, Robbie finds the ideal energy and tone throughout. Her performance is a joy to behold.

And yet, Ryan Gosling is a consistent scene-stealer as he revels in Ken’s himbo frailty. He goes from Barbie’s needy beau to a swaggering, macho doofus as he throws himself headlong into how he thinks a real man should behave. (Viewers familiar with Los Angeles geography will particularly get a kick out of the places that provide his inspiration.) Gosling sells his square-jawed character’s earnestness and gets to tap into his “All New Mickey Mouse Club” musical theater roots simultaneously. He’s a total hoot.

Within the film’s enormous ensemble—where the women are all Barbies and the men are all Kens, with a couple of exceptions—there are several standouts. They include a gonzo Kate McKinnon as the so-called “Weird Barbie” who places Robbie’s character on her path; Issa Rae as the no-nonsense President Barbie; Alexandra Shipp as a kind and capable Doctor Barbie; Simu Liu as the trash-talking Ken who torments Gosling’s Ken; and America Ferrera in a crucial role as a Mattel employee. And we can’t forget Michael Cera as the one Allan, bumbling awkwardly in a sea of hunky Kens—although everyone else forgets Allan.

But while “Barbie” is wildly ambitious in an exciting way, it’s also frustratingly uneven at times. After coming on strong with wave after wave of zippy hilarity, the film drags in the middle as it presents its more serious themes. It’s impossible not to admire how Gerwig is taking a big swing with heady notions during the mindless blockbuster season, but she offers so many that the movie sometimes stops in its propulsive tracks to explain itself to us—and then explain those points again and again. The breezy, satirical edge she established off the top was actually a more effective method of conveying her ideas about the perils of toxic masculinity and entitlement and the power of female confidence and collaboration.

One character delivers a lengthy, third-act speech about the conundrum of being a woman and the contradictory standards to which society holds us. The middle-aged mom in me was nodding throughout in agreement, feeling seen and understood, as if this person knew me and was speaking directly to me. But the longtime film critic in me found this moment a preachy momentum killer—too heavy-handed, too on-the-nose, despite its many insights.

Still, if such a crowd-pleasing extravaganza can also offer some fodder for thoughtful conversations afterward, it’s accomplished several goals simultaneously. It’s like sneaking spinach into your kid’s brownies—or, in this case, blondies.

Available in theaters on July 21st.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Barbie (2023)

Rated PG-13 for suggestive references and brief language.

114 minutes

Margot Robbie as Barbie

Ryan Gosling as Ken

America Ferrera as Gloria

Will Ferrell as Mattel CEO

Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie

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John Cena as Kenmaid

Kingsley Ben-Adir as Ken

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Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1

Kevin Costner goes back west in his most ambitious cinematic gamble yet

Time Out says

Back in 1990, actor-director Kevin Costner defied expectations and turned a three-hour passion-project western into an Oscar-winning hit. During production, some waggish commentators had dubbed it ‘Kevin’s Gate’, riffing on 1980 western flop Heaven’s Gate . I t was, of course, Dances With Wolves , a seven-Oscar-winning smash.

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COMMENTS

Western Stars movie review & film summary (2019)
Thom Zimny and Bruce Springsteen 's "Western Stars" is a lovely companion piece to the latest album from the legendary musician, a gorgeous, introspective journey into the very concept of the American conscience. As Springsteen lays out in the introduction, life is often a push-and-pull between the concept of the individual and the need ...
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Western Stars
94% Tomatometer 53 Reviews 91% Audience Score 250+ Verified Ratings Backed by a band and a full orchestra, Bruce Springsteen performs all 13 songs from his new album "Western Stars," touching on ...
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Rob DeMartin/Warner Bros. Bruce Springsteen eases into a damn fine feature-film directing debut, aided and abetted by his longtime collaborator Thom Zimny, with Western Stars, a transporting ...
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This concert film, directed by the singer and Thom Zimny, puts Bruce in a barn with an orchestra to make some magic. Share full article Bruce Springsteen in the concert film "Western Stars."
'Western Stars': Film Review
Performed live, with a 30-piece orchestra and a small private audience tucked into his 100-year-old barn on his Colts Neck, New Jersey, property, the songs are introduced via Springsteen's ...
Review: 'Western Stars' is Bruce Springsteen at home on the range
Rated: PG, for some thematic elements, alcohol and smoking images, and brief language. Running time: 1 hour, 23 minutes. Playing: In general release. In new film, Bruce Springsteen performs the 13 ...
'Western Stars': Part Concert Film, Part Visual Album, All Springsteen
September 13, 2019. Bruce Springsteen in the concert movie 'Western Stars.'. Rob DeMartin. Listen to the opening track of Bruce Springsteen's Western Stars, the album he put out this past May ...
Western Stars
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 10, 2019. Each song is performed live in the film, and each song is set up with a short video narrated by Springsteen explaining the inspiration for each ...
Western Stars
Springsteen's first studio album in five years, Western Stars marks a departure for the legendary singer/songwriter while still drawing on his roots. Touching on themes of love and loss, loneliness and family and the inexorable passage of time, the documentary film evokes the American West—both the mythic and the hardscrabble—weaving archival footage and Springsteen's personal ...
'Western Stars' Film Review: Bruce Springsteen Gets Introspective in
But "Western Stars," the film, shatters that take on "Western Stars," the album. It is built around a performance of the complete album that took place in the hayloft of a 140-year-old ...
Western Stars Review
Release Date: 27 Oct 2019. Original Title: Western Stars. You don't get a Bruce Springsteen movie forever and then two come along at once. Following Gurinder Chadha 's love-letter to The Boss ...
Review: Springsteen Concert Film 'Western Stars' Barely Shines : NPR
The spine of the film remains the 14-song concert; Springsteen fronting a 30-piece orchestra in a hundred-year-old barn on his New Jersey horse farm, doing all the Western Stars numbers plus a ...
'Western Stars' review: Bruce Springsteen documentary proves he still
"Western Stars" is set to open Friday on 375 screens , and it represents something I'd love to see more of: a wide-release concert film featuring an artist from the age of classic pop stardom.
Western Stars Movie Review
In WESTERN STARS, musician Bruce Springsteen assembles a 30-piece orchestra, along with his backing band and backup singers, in the century-old barn on his property in northern New Jersey. In front of a small audience, they perform the 13 songs from Springsteen's 2019 album Western Stars, plus an encore.In between numbers, Springsteen tells stories of how each song -- based in memories, hurt ...
Western Stars (2019)
Western Stars: Directed by Bruce Springsteen, Thom Zimny. With Patti Scialfa, Bruce Springsteen. Live concert performance of Bruce Springsteen singing songs from his album 'Western Stars'.
Western Stars Featured, Reviews Film Threat
To hammer home his most recent album, Western Stars, Bruce Springsteen has co-directed—with Thom Zimny—his own concert film of the same name. It's a live performance of the album in its entirety, performed on the second story of Springsteen's 19th-century barn, with a stable of very lucky horses just beneath the stage. That's as good
'Western Stars' review
Reviews Deals Money Gifts ... So he follows the Netflix special capturing his Broadway show with "Western Stars," a deeply personal film performing songs from his latest album, ...
Western Stars (2019)
9/10. A very good concert album with introductions. chong_an 15 September 2019. Instead of touring his latest album, Bruce Springsteen made this movie of its contents. It was mostly recorded in his century-old barn, with a 30-piece orchestra, some new vocal arrangements by Patti Scialfa, and an audience of a few friends and the horses in the ...
'Western Stars' Film Review: Bruce Springsteen Gets ...
The film begins with an aerial shot of a wide-open desert plain, with wild horses running free. There's an old barn, a car, a weathered hand sporting turquoise jewelry grasping a steering wheel ...
Bruce Springsteen 'Western Stars' on HBO: Review
Released last summer, Springsteen has said his Western Stars album was influenced by the "Southern California pop music of the '70s," and such artists as Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb, and Burt ...
Review: Western Stars
DIR: Bruce Springsteen, Thom Zimmy. Following the Emmy award-winning success of 'Springsteen on Broadway' the duo of Thom Zimmy and Bruce Springsteen set off on their next project to create the film Western Stars.The Boss, now 70 years of age, decided not to tour his recent 13-song album of the same name as the concert film, but instead to explore through a cinematic lens the inner ...
WESTERN STARS
WESTERN STARS is the exact opposite. About a half hour of the movie is Bruce commenting on different aspects of life, including love, loss, failure, risk, brokenness, etc. The rest is of Bruce singing with an orchestra behind him in a barn type setting and only two cameras covering various shots.
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