Film / Blinded by the Light

If I could wrench one moment into my hands
Mister I ain't a boy, no, I'm a man
And I believe in a promised land

— Bruce Springsteen, "Promised Land"

Blinded by the Light (also known as Music of My Life) is a 2019 film by Gurinder Chadha inspired by the book Greetings from Bury Park: Race, Religion and Rock N’ Roll by Sarfraz Manzoor. Manzoor also is credited as a writer for the film.

Luton, 1987. Javed Khan (Viveik Kalra), a son of Pakistani immigrants, wants three key things out of life: 1. To get out of Luton. 2. To undertake writing as a profession. 3. To find a girl. Unfortunately, the circumstances of his family and the culture of the time make all three of these things difficult, and things are not helped when his father, Malik (Kulvinder Ghir), is laid off from the automotive plant in town.

Things change, from the way he looks at his own life and his relationship with his father, when a new friend at school gives him two tapes by Bruce Springsteen, and Javed finds that the lyrics perfectly describe his situation in life. The film also stars Meera Ganatra, Nell Williams, Aaron Phagura, & Dean-Charles Chapman and was released on August 9, 2019 by eOne Films.

No connection to the like-named trope.

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This movie provides examples of:

• All for Nothing:
  • Javed's neighbor Mr. Evans laments that he and his friends risked their lives in World War II to defeat the Nazis, only for the National Front in Luton to adopt their symbols and ideology.
  • Javed ducks out from a family wedding to get Springsteen concert tickets while they are still available. It turns out that he needn't have hurried: there were plenty available at the dealer and selling relatively slowly.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents:
  • On the first day of school, Javed's father, Malik, shouts at him from the car to stay away from girls and "follow the Jews" to success. Matt also views his father this way.
  • Eliza also feels this way about hers. They believe she's only with Javed to shock them, mention that Eliza once brought home a "colored fellow" before (which she tells him is a term no one uses anymore) and her dad offers him wine even though as a Muslim it's forbidden. As they're Conservatives and she's a leftist activist, it's clear she finds that an embarrassment as well.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Mr Evans finds one of Javeds poems, bluntly condemning the local skinheads and brings it over the house sternly. Malik is started to apologize when he says how he fought men with swastikas in World War Two and is happy to see someone standing up to people wearing them in the streets of Britain’s and compliments his writing.
  • When Javed arrives in New Jersey and is going through customs, the stern looking official asks him why he's visiting the country. After Javed explains that he's won a contest and is also going to tour Bruce Springsteen's hometown, the man tells one of his coworkers what Javed just said. He then smiles at Javed and tells him he can't think of a better reason for someone to visit America.
• Calling the Old Man Out:
  • When Javed wins the contest to get to visit Monmouth University in New Jersey Malik forbids him from going, as well as forbidding him from even thinking about going to Manchester to study. Javed calls him out, saying that Malik, too, left his home, Pakistan, at a young age.
  • Malik's wife, Noor also does this to him near the end after Malik banishes Javed from returning home from his USA trip, reminding him that he too left Pakistan at a young age against his family's wishes and how his actions are pushing Javed away. She then urges him to make it right with Javed or else they might lose him forever and she'll never forgive him.
• Children Are Innocent: Not exactly; some of the racists harassing the Pakistanis are children, but while the teenager threatens Javed and the adults flat out assault people, the kids do gross "pranks" and then run away laughing to themselves.
• Cool Old Guy: Mr Evans, Javed's neighbour, who encourages his writing and standing up against the NF.
• Cool Teacher: It's clear that Ms Clay has ambitions in this direction, and she helps Javed a lot — though from what we see, her actual lessons are usually fairly conventional, and it's not clear how seriously any of her other students take her attitude.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: After meeting Eliza's Conservative parents and hearing them mention how she's brought a "colored fellow" home before, Javed asks her whether she's only dating him as a form of rebellion. She assures him that when they're together, the last thing she's thinking about are her parents.
• Double-Meaning Title: Besides being a shout-out to Springsteen, the title also refers to how the revelation of Springsteen and how music and words can be used, seeing the light if you will, completely takes over Javed's life and makes him oblivious to the issues going on with his family. This all comes to a head when Javed ditches his sister's wedding and is not there when his family is attacked by NF marchers because he left to buy Springsteen tickets.
• Empathic Environment: Javed contrives to suffer an evening's worth of especially tumultuous emotions on the night of the Great Storm of 1987.
• Failed Dramatic Exit: Javed has a big emotional fight with his father and storms out of the house and attempts to drive off. The car does not start.
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father: For much of the film, Malik is an authoritarian, intolerant stick-in-the-mud who cannot conceive of his son following pursuits like writing. Even when Javed writes a newspaper story defending their community which gets published on the front page, all Malik can think of how his son stirring up trouble when any other parent would be screaming in pride up and down the street with a copy of the story in his hands.
• Grass is Greener: Inverted. Malik is wary of Javed traveling to Monmouth University in New Jersey for a conference because of America's issues with gang violence and drugs. Javed points out their very town has those same exact problems.
• Hated Hometown: One of Javed's biggest desires, even from a young age, is to leave Luton as soon as he can. One of the poems he writes is even called "Luton is a Four Letter Word."
• I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham: Malik is completely dismissive of Bruce Springsteen and his music, considering it a bad influence that is distracting Javed from pursuing a noble profession. But then when he actually listens to Springsteen's songs, he finds himself appreciating the themes of family and working hard for a better life. He reconciles with Javed soon afterwards (while joking that Springsteen has to be a fellow Pakistani given the lyrical content) and the film ends with them listening to "Born to Run" as they drive to Manchester.
• Irony: Several characters mock Javed's love of Springsteen, claiming that he's a has-been whose music is for old people while praising musicians such as Tiffany and Debbie Gibson, who were all very much fad musicians that never had the lasting impact Springsteen has had.
• Ironic Juxtaposition: Javed's sister's wedding is attacked by some National Front demonstrators who beat up Javed's father, calling for immigrants to be removed from Britain, right beside a billboard for the Conservative Party proclaiming its message of "Uniting Britain."
• Letting Her Hair Down: Javeds younger sister Shazia does this both figuratively and literally at a club she sneaks off to to go dancing and once has Javed accompanying her.
• Middle Child Syndrome: Javed has an older sister, and a younger one and is the only child to really have problems with his dad.
• Mirror Character: Twice in relation to Javed:
  • With his father Malik. Both had dreams of leaving home and making something of themselves elsewhere, with a Fantasy-Forbidding Parent. Malik also ends up with an appreciation for Springsteen, like his son
  • With Matt. Despite their differences in taste, both found a connection to their music that very few people understand, and both of them clash with their father over it.
• Misaimed Fandom: Discussed In-Universe. Matt doesn't understand Javed's love of Springsteen and cites "Born in the U.S.A." as an example of the guy being a one-note patriotic American. Javed points out the song is actually about the harsh treatment and trauma Vietnam War veterans had to face upon returning home.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Averted. Javed sees Shazia dancing familiarly with a boy at the club and, frowning asks how long they’ve been together, with Shazia hesitantly saying they’ve been in a Secret Relationship fifteen months, at which point her brother breaks into a smile and congratulated her for being able to hide it from the family for so long. Then, he shifts the conversation to talking about the sense of liberation music brings them.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: While it's implied their friendship had been wavering for some time before then, Javed and Matt fall out when Matt finally has enough of Javed not sticking up for him against his father making fun of him and his taste in music. However, the trope is zigzagged with Javed going back to Matt’s house to apologize at the very end of the scene and Matt accepting the sentiment after a brief pause.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Malik is not a villain by any means, but he does have a rather narrow worldview as shown by his frequent comments about Jewish people. (Even these are positive, but stereotypical) He also views writing as only for English people with rich parents.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Though far from the focus, the National Front are present throughout the movie harassing and threatening the Pakistanis.
• Politically Motivated Teacher: Ms Clay makes her political position clear on her first appearance.
• Saw "Star Wars" Twenty-Seven Times: The end credits note that Sarfraz Manzoor, "the real Javed", has now seen Springsteen in concert 150+ times.
• Second-Act Breakup: Eliza and Javed break up when she finds out that Javed left his older sister's wedding processional, and completely missed them being attacked because he left to buy Springsteen tickets. Tickets that were never in danger of selling out.
• Silly Love Songs: What Matt wants Javed to write for his band. After Javed starts dating Eliza, he does.
• Suspiciously Apropos Music: The plot is largely kicked off because of how much the lyrics to certain songs by Springsteen fit Javed's life like a glove. Of particular note is how "Dancing in the Dark" and its lines of "I check my look in the mirror Wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face" and "I'm sick of sittin' 'round here tryin' to write this book" describe Javed's trouble with girls and issues as a writer.
• Toilet Humor: Subverted; some racist kids piss through Javed's father's friend's mail slot, but it's presented as gross and the brats are the only ones laughing. They apparently do it so much that the family sets plastic down inside their house.
• The '80s: It begins with a prologue in 1980 and then flashes forward seven years to 1987. Aside from the fashions and music various references to 1980s Britain abound, including several references to Margaret Thatcher.
• Titled After the Song: Titled after the first track of ''Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.'' (which incidentally makes it the first Springsteen song commercially released), though the title also has another meaning in the context of the film. See Double-Meaning Title.
• Trailers Always Spoil: Some of the trailers spoiled that Javed would go to America and see Springsteen's hometown.
• Values Resonance: In-Universe. The main focus of plot is how the lyrics of some of Bruce Springsteen's songs meant to describe the feeling of middle class New Jersey in the late 1970s/early 1980s resonate to a Pakistani boy living in Britain nearly a decade after they came out.

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