Musicals are virtually scientifically engineered to raise your spirits. Plots be damned, you’ll be able to’t assist however really feel a bit of elated after two-plus hours of watching folks minimize a rug whereas singing about their innermost emotions. It is a basic precept that allowed Broadway titans like Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber to reimagine tragic love tales and gothic horror thrillers as crowd-pleasing spectacles about homicide, revenge, and, most terrifying of all, having to take care of a needy, egotistical lead actor. Even after they finish in sorrow and despair, you continue to go away the theater buzzing their catchiest earworms on an endorphin excessive (or, should you’ve solely simply watched “Cats” for the primary time, maybe a special form of excessive).
What occurs, then, once you rent the authority on cinematic melancholy that’s twenty first century Clint Eastwood to show your Broadway smash right into a film? You get “Jersey Boys,” probably one of the crucial downbeat and dour musicals ever dedicated to the display screen. For those who ever puzzled whether or not “Mystic River” and even “Million Greenback Child” is likely to be only a tad much less miserable if their characters sang about their feelings in between the moments of anguish, loss, and turmoil, the reply, judging by the outcomes right here, is … not likely. Nonetheless, whereas it isn’t onerous to know why “Jersey Boys” was a flop upon its launch in 2014, that very same somberness additionally makes it one in every of a form within the trendy film musical panorama.
Eastwood’s Jersey Boys is an anti-Broadway crowd-pleaser
Eastwood’s grounded, somber depiction of Sixties rock ‘n’ roll sensation The 4 Seasons’ fast ascension to fame and the nice (and particularly the unhealthy) instances that adopted is more true to its supply materials than you may suspect. The unique jukebox Broadway musical written by Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman (sure, as within the Oscar-winning “Annie Corridor” co-writer) eschews the concept of being a fantastical portrayal of the band’s story, presenting itself as one thing akin to a stay theater documentary. In line with that, the Man With No Identify typically avoids the sort of flights of fancy you’d discover in a biopic musical like “Rocketman.” As an alternative, virtually all the songs are diegetic and offered in a practical gentle (the top credit apart), whether or not it is the Seasons singing stay in sequences that Eastwood and his trusty cinematographer Tom Stern tone performed by taking pictures with their typical regular, unfussy protection and subdued black-and-brown colour palette or the group’s music getting used because the soundtrack for montages, a lot of which are likely to deal with the extra doleful beats within the band’s story.
What you find yourself with is a film that performs a bit of like a bummer model of “That Factor You Do!” … and that is even earlier than the Seasons’ breakout success (because of all-timer pop classics like “Sherry” and “Huge Women Do not Cry”) is sullied by the band’s in-fighting, mob money owed, and familial hardships. However the place Tom Hanks’ musical dramedy a couple of fictional ’60s band sky-rocketing up the Billboard charts principally manages to offset its cutesy nostalgia with extra sobering moments, Eastwood’s relentlessly gritty strategy clashes with the scenes the place “Jersey Boys” desires to be extra light-hearted and charming. Most folk agree on this level too, as evidenced by the movie’s Rotten Tomatoes rankings (51 % from critics, with the viewers rating solely a bit greater at 62 %) and disappointing field workplace turnout ($67 million worldwide towards a $40 million finances).
Nonetheless, with its soulful music, themes of flawed masculinity, and a wistful story concerning the value that comes with a lifetime spent within the highlight, “Jersey Boys” is actually as private as the rest Eastwood has ever directed. Regardless of its missteps, it even succeeds as, basically, an anti-Broadway crowd-pleaser and that every one too uncommon specimen of a musical that will really go away you feeling extra despondent than you probably did entering into. (Y’know, if that is your factor.)
