Blinded By The Light Review

Blinded by The Light was directed by Gurinder Chadha and stars Vivek Kalra, Hayley Atwell, Rob Brydon, Kulvinder Ghir, Neil Williams, Dean-Charles Chapman and Aaron Phagura.

The plot revolves around a teenager who writes poetry as a way of dealing with the very difficualt life around him. But his life changes when through a classmate he is introducued to the music of Bruce Springsteen. And through the music he finds a way to express himself in his own voice and maybe even find a way of achieving his dreams.

The performances were fine and many of the actors were clearly invested in the film. But all the characters being portrayed all felt either clichéd or exaggerated in some scenes. And despite the best efforts of lead actor Viveik Karla as Javid, although he does have moments where he shows great potential he fails to use that potential to enrich his performance. I instead we are left with what feels like a standard likeability, common to the protagonists of this genre of films. I do think there is talent here, it just not being put to good use.

The film was written by Paul Mayeda Burges, Gurinder Chada and Sarfeaz Manoor. They succeed in making the film feel like a success story with a slightly musical twist, told from an unusual point of view. But they do miss the opportunity to address things that might have made their film a bit more interesting and noteworthy, and when these things are given some attention it feels like a subplot with minimal effort put in. The script is far from perfect, it understands its basic ideas. But if it's going to have any kind of subplot that relates to the main plot in any way, it should at least have the decency to seem equally committed to both.

The film was shot by Ben Smithard, and while most of the shots are nothing noteworthy there was one visual choice that stood out to me, and that was when Javid is listening to songs on his Walkman and the lyrics sometimes appear on-screen. But some of them are singled out and I thought this was an interesting way to point out which words are supposed to mean something of importance to this character. 

The score was composed by A.R. Rahman. Unfortunately while I'm sure his score was of a high standard, It was hard for me to take any notice of it, most likely due to its being overshadowed by the constant use of popular eighties songs - not just those of Bruce Springsteen, but bands like Pet Shop Boys, and Mental As Anything also get songs played. I think most of them just help to make the 80s setting seem authentic. This is all very well but the downside that Springsteen gets less attention, which is unfortunate given how much of a role his music plays in the film. The use of all these songs from this particular  period just takes your attention away from what might actually be a very good score.

The one flaw that affected my enjoyment of this film was that it felt like it went on for far too long, there were things that maybe were important to the plot but chose to get to them in a very slow paced fashion. It also doesn't help that there's one scene in a club that just comes off as needless and a way to fill up the nearly two hour runtime. And by the time the film was almost over, I had very little attention left for it.

The conclusions I draw from this are that: Blinded By The Light has fine performances, with potential evident in its lead; a script that achieves its core aims but dismisses the opportunity to address subjects that might make it a bit more interesting; no standout shots in the cinematography, but one interesting visual choice; and a score that is sadly overshadowed by a constant of use of eighties songs by artists other than the intended subject of the film; and is seriously flawed in being too long and trying to justify its length with scenes that don't advance any aspects of the film.
Having taken all my pros and cons into account, I'm going to give Blinded By The Light...

C-

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