So when Gurinder Chadha came together with Sarfraz Manzoor to tell a version of Manzoor's own coming-of-age story in the late 1980s, they not only made a move about that time, they made a movie that could pretty comfortably be of that time. Which didn't pose much of a problem for the director of Bend It Like Beckham, Chadhas' 2002 story of a teenage Punjabi girl whose traditional-minded parents resist the idea of her playing soccer in their new London home. Thus an adaptation of Manzoor's memoir came to the screen as Blinded by the Light.
Viveik Kalra plays Javed Khan, the character based on Manzoor. Although he has lived in England most of his life, he feels separated from his classmates and neighbors because of his Pakistani origin and strong local prejudice. But his desire to write also clashes with his father's eyes-on-the-prize attitude of what he should do with his life. He has one longtime friend, Matt (Dean-Charles Chapman), and a new acquaintaince at his new school, a Sikh student named Roops (Aaron Phagura). One day Roops loans Javed two Bruce Springsteen cassettes and advises him to take a listen: As the trailer tells us, Roops thinks that "Bruce is a direct line to all that's true in this sh**y world." Javed is skeptical: What can the son of a working-class family in New Jersey have to say to the son of immigrants in Luton, England?
Plenty, as it turns out, since Javed's exposure to Springsteen's universal themes of longing, not fitting in and pursuing his dreams opens up new courage for him in showing his writing to his teacher Ms. Clay (Hayley Atwell), pursuing a young lady Eliza (Nell Williams) and throwing himself more and more into Springsteen albums and music. The natural clash with his father Malik (Kulvinder Ghir) is magnified by Malik being laid off from work and pushback from his sister Yasmeen (Tara Divina), who also thinks there is nothing in the music of an American singer for a Pakistani in London.
Two themes guide Blinded. One is Javed's discovery of his voice as a writer and as a person when he listens to Springsteen's own journey in his songs. Another is Javed's desire to be himself as an individual person, not defined for either good or ill by his skin, religion, country of origin or culture. Both the racism of the National Front movement active in that part of England at that time and his own family's desire for him to fit in a predefined role chafe as Javed Khan tries to learn who Javed Khan might be.
Although the cast and Chadha do great work, and the production design excellently evokes the atmosphere of the mid-to-late 1980s, Blinded could have stood more work. Malik is really the only other member of Javed's family who has a regular role; Javed's mother primarily looks at him worriedly and counsels her husband that he was once little different from the son he's raising. The sisters have less consequence except in specific instances. A conflict between Javed and Matt seems artificial, and a lot of the story points echo Beckham more directly than they should.
On the other hand, Blinded doesn't make Javed a spotless hero and he learns that there is a lot of value in his own culture, heritage and community. Rather than cast off his past as he would restraining shackles, he sees chances to synthesize old and new as he looks for his path in the world.
The latter may be one of the best parts of Blinded by the Light. As it turns out, a working-class white kid turned rock star does have something to say to a young Pakistani immigrant half a world away. There are some universals to human experience and sometimes they transcend our artificial lines, our boundaries and our mortal terror of cultural appropriation. Javed Khan learns that over the course of the movie, and that matters more than a movie character arc usually does because Sarfraz Manzoor learned it before Javed did... and Sarfraz learned it in the real world.
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