Chadha tells the story of Javed, a teenager in Luton, a small city with diminishing jobs, white nationalists and very little to offer the aspiring writer. His father, recently laid off from his own factory job, wants nothing more than Javed to educate himself locally, get a decent job and earn money for the family. Nobody understands him. That is, until a Sikh friend gives him a cassette of Bruce Springsteen, well a pair -- Born in the USA and Badlands. And those songs of a working class man wanting more than to escape his life & his world with the girl of his dreams were lightning in a bottle for Javed. Exposed primarily to 80s New Wave (his best friend and neighbour is in a band) and the music his parents allow him to listen to, this jolts him from just being upset about where he is going towards actually pursuing what he wants.
This is a typical over the top British feel good movie, meant to transport you away on a cliche story with a twist. But really, what dragged me in was my own connection to these songs. I went through the exact exposure Javed was, and while I may not have had the blue collar background, I felt the need to escape my small world, and what it expected of me. Springsteen's songs are poetic, angry, lyrical and charged with pain. "Gonna be a twister to blow everything down. That ain't got the faith to stand its ground. Blow away the dreams that tear you apart. Blow away the dreams that break your heart. Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted." And in these painful memories, I felt some release of this bottled up pain of late. Some.
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