The 80s were a crazy decade – awesome music, terrible politics. (Possibly the latter helped cause the former.)
In Blinded By The Light it’s 1987 and Mrs Thatcher is in power, while record players and Walkmans hum with Wham! and Bananarama (when it comes to the 80s, if you never tried to wind a cassette back on using a pencil you weren’t really there.)
Javed is a bit of a dork. Not that we really used the word dork then. A square, maybe. He lives in Luton and is struggling to reconcile his Pakistani-British identity at home with his conservative immigrant parents, and his dreams of being a writer.
Until his friend Roops introduces him to Bruce Springsteen, who speaks to everything Javed is feeling – even if everyone else dismisses the Boss’s music as “Springsteen. He’s more what your dad listens to”.
This is a gorgeously bouncy and joyous trailer though it doesn’t shy away from bullying and racism, at school and on the streets.
Blinded By The Light is directed by Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham, Viceroy’s House) and written by Sarfraz Manzoor, Gurinder Chadha, and Paul Mayeda Berges – the story is based on Manzoor’s memoir, Greetings From Bury Park.
The movie stars Viveik Kalra as Javed, Hayley Attwell as Javed’s teacher Ms Clay, Aaron Phagura as Roops, and Nell Williams as Eliza.
We have to wait until AUGUST for it to come out, so why not use that time constructively and make a compilation cassette for whoever you fancy.
As a character says “It’s music your Dad listens to ” ie Springsteen you can take him or leave him. However as a child growing up in the 80’s this looks like a cracking film with an excellent cast. Very good subject matter which I can relate to and one I will look forward to seeing. Thanks
Springsteen is one of those performers where I think I don’t know many of his songs but it turns out I know loads. I think it’s because in the 70s/80s hit records sold so many copies.