That's part of Blinded by the Light's magic it always returns home. Javed and Roops take a similar journey in Blinded by the Light, a whirlwind montage that whips through Freehold, gets off at Exit 100, makes a pit-stop at Jersey Freeze and then touches back down in Luton. Inside, hymns were being screamed over four-chord riffs.
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I went to Catholic school for 12 years and learned only that A) If God is real I'd like to ask her some questions and B) The only scripture I'll ever truly need is the song " Badlands." I've been to Asbury Park more times than I can count, a wild place that's not a quarter wild as it used to be, but I'll never forget the first time I stood in front of the Stone Pony, the temple at the end of a life-long pilgrimage.
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My name is Vinnie and I come from a small town just a few exits down the parkway from a New Jersey shoreline, so it was basically coded into my DNA from birth that Bruce is part genius, part prophet. The light at the end of a tunnel, blinding though it may be. A friend, Roops ( Aaron Phagura), introduces Javed to the words and sounds of Bruce Springsteen, and suddenly he sees a version of himself that could be bigger than a small town. (That's a small town less than two hours from London.) A talented writer and poet, Javed can't relate to a divided community that hates his race and a strict father ( Kulvinder Ghir) who hates his art. Based on a memoir by journalist Sarfraz Manzoor-who also co-wrote the script-the film follows Javed ( Viveik Kalra), a British-Pakistani teenager navigating life and loneliness in 1987 Luton. Chadha's first English-language film since Bend It Like Beckham is that rare piece that traffics masterfully in themes both personal and universal.
BLINDED BY THE LIGHT WORDS MOVIE
I don't love to mix personal stories with movie thoughts-"Collider is not your diary" has been a constant refrain since I started working here, especially back when I was asked to scream into a void about the show Gotham-but it's almost impossible not to when discussing Blinded by the Light. The second time was ten years later and 3,000 miles away, in a mostly-empty Los Angeles screening room, watching Gurinder Chadha's Blinded by the Light. A bachelor degree's worth of change waited for us both when we came back across that bridge, troubles that meant nothing at the time to 18-year-olds who could still believe both bridges and sax solos go on forever. Have you ever experienced a piece of art that felt like it was made for you, specifically, at that exact moment in time? Something that went beyond "I love this" or "I give this 5 stars" and hit closer to "I needed this", like medicine, like a well-timed letter from a long-lost friend? It's only happened to me twice in my life the first time, me and my best friend drove across the bridge into Seaside Heights, New Jersey just as Clarence Clemons' mighty saxophone solo crescendoed during Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band's " Thunder Road." It was a golden summer day between high school and college.