Two Springsteens and the Faustian Bargain

25 movies and 0 hits: it’s been a particularly rough quarter for Hollywood. But as I discuss with the cultural commentator David Masciotra, it’s actually been a pretty strong quarter in terms of movie quality. From Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” and Jennifer Lawrence’s astonishing performance in “Die My Love” to a glitteringly bald Emma Stone in “Bugonia” and Ethan Coen’s “Honey Don’t!”, Hollywood is producing high quality, relevant material. One problem, however, is that Gen Z has abandoned cinema. Another is that Hollywood’s penchant for movies dominated by memorably uncompromising female leads like Stone and Lawrence might be out of step with a broader culture still imprisoned by a nostalgia for a dominant masculinity. Perhaps that’s why “One Battle After Another”, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio as a pathetically redundant Sixties radical, is the one hit of the season. And it may also be why the excellent Springsteen biopic, “Deliver Me From Nowhere”, featuring a clueless Bruce trying to find himself by recording “Nebraska”, was such a flop. No, men don’t matter, either in Hollywood or in life. Even when they do.

One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson) The season’s sole commercial success ($70 million) works because it satirizes everyone. DiCaprio’s incompetent ‘60s radical provides comic relief, but it’s Chase Infinity’s cynical Gen Z daughter who steals the film (even if Gen Z’ers have given up going to the movies). Anderson’s Pynchon adaptation makes absurdity central to American identity, both then and now—the villainous Christmas Adventures Club in golf attire perfectly capturing MAGA’s ridiculousness.

Die My Love (Josephine Decker) Jennifer Lawrence delivers an astonishing performance confirming she’s among Hollywood’s greatest actors. The film died at the box office despite critical praise—perhaps because audiences resistant to female-dominated narratives won’t show up even for exceptional work like this. Her assertiveness and complexity highlights exactly what’s missing from contemporary male performances.

Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos) Emma Stone continues her fearless run in this cultish, visually striking film. Her performance demonstrates creative risk-taking unavailable to today’s male leads. Jesse Plemons plays the archetypal basement-dwelling conspiracy theorist—masculine id of our internet age. Its commercial failure suggests audiences aren’t ready for cinema that interrogates rather than celebrates American mythology.

Honey Don’t! (Ethan Coen) Coen’s lesbian B-movie homage to film noir, which David Masciotra loved, deserved better than its catastrophic box office. Margaret Qualley’s detective becomes a feminist hero fighting idiotic patriarchy without losing entertainment value. Set in Bakersfield and focused on religious hypocrisy, it feels both familiar and innovative. Its death proves even clever, relevant films can’t entice Gen Z’ers back to the movies.

Deliver Me From Nowhere (James Mangold) The season’s most revealing failure. The film captures Springsteen’s Faustian bargain—trading artistic integrity for superstardom, making “Nebraska” his final serious work before “Born in the USA”’s commercial conquest. It depicts fierce masculine anxiety through Bruce’s mentally ill, violent father and his own depression. Yet it bored audiences with its introspective approach—ultimate proof that even films about masculine crisis can’t reach audiences imprisoned by nostalgia for an imaginary American masculinity that never existed.

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