Review of Jersey Boys (2014)

"Everybody remembers it how they need to"

These words, uttered at the end of the Clint Eastwood's "Jersey Boys", by Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza) of The Four Seasons, which also adorn the poster, are crucial to understanding it. This is not a gritty retelling of four boys from Jersey, and the film quickly assuages fears that it's going to be a cheap Scorsese knock-off (it gets the "funny how?" nod in early, and leaves it). Instead it's a soap-opera-lit, presumably historically bastardised, piece of sentiment. It does a wise thing and takes on the qualities of a Valli song itself; glitzy, breezy and good fun. And there's nothing wrong with that. It means the film isn't a paint-by-numbers piece of trash that's the inspirational movie of the week on some channel nobody watches. The film has energy, and the film feels alive.

This is mainly due to the casting. Eastwood has collated a group of young faces as the Four Seasons, and I recognised all of them to some degree; or rather, I recognised qualities in all of them. Piazza, for example, has that same cold aloofness that Robert Pattinson has, and it's used well in this film. Erich Bergen, as songwriter/pianist Bob Gaudio has the same reluctance and determination of a young Steve Buscemi. Michael Lomendi as Nick Massi, the bassist, has that same goofy charm of someone like Jason Sudeikis, that gifted comic actor, and these talents, too, are used well. And then there's John Lloyd Young, who is both the weak link in my theory, and the strong point of the film. He is like no other actor in particular; he is simply like Franki Valli, and we believe his renditions of those timeless songs.  

I was very surprised to learn that for a lot of the cast, this was their first major film (with a few forays into TV). Most of them (bar Piazza) have graduated from the stage musical, yet they all have memorable faces, and I can see this film as their springboard to other things. And then, of course, there's Christopher Walken as the gangster with a heart Gyp DeCarlo (look at how he cries at one of the early Four Seasons concerts), and he does that thing that Walken is very good at doing; being the centre of a scene, projecting quiet intensity and unpredictability, and lending a certain integrity to proceedings. His character is arguably made to be bigger than he needs to be, but I imagine Eastwood, looking at what he had to play with, felt compelled to put more of him in. I can understand that. God bless Christopher Walken. 

The film itself, as you might have gathered, is no masterpiece. But it doesn't need to be. "Everyone remembers it how they used to". I do, however, see the makings of a minor classic in here somewhere. The film hits the notes it amiably sets up so boldly and so perfectly that to criticise the film for being too neat would seem cruel. That's the point. It has its roots in that Tony-winning stage musical (which I have now made it an imperative to see), and that's the best frame of mind to view this film in. When the various characters break the fourth wall and address the camera, one could very well be infuriated... Or you could just have fun with it, and go with it. It befits the musical mentality.

The songs, of course, are what they are, and if you don't know what that is by now then perhaps this film isn't for you. Likewise, if you don't fall for the sweet charm of the Four Seasons songs, then this film isn't for you too. It relies on them, and they often provide the full-stop after moments of dialogue and action. 

I wonder what drew Eastwood to this material. As a biopic, it seems like an odd choice, but then after the "heavy" films he's been giving us lately, perhaps he felt as though something lighter was due. It's certainly good fun, and I can't criticise that. It does what it sets out to do and does it very well indeed. The screenplay by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, adapted from their own musical, is genuinely witty in places (the "Vivaldi" exchange was well done) and also actually takes the time to establish the characters as not just types but real people. Eastwood shoots the film in a rather conventional, non-prettyfied way, and that works too. We see what we need to see.

I can't, and won't, comment on the historical accuracy of this film (how could I?), but it certainly feels rather spruced up, tarted up and dolled up in the way biopics nowadays are. The ending, for example, reeks of the convenience of something like that infamous late-night phone-call scene in Frost/Nixon, which is the only scene that the writers conceded was pure invention (and also one of the best moments of the film). This is not a bad thing; in fact, it's just what this material needs.

My one complaint, and it's not necessarily a major one, is that the female roles in this film take a backseat often to the detriment of the overall story. I'm not going to harp on about how there should be more women in the film, or that the film is actually sexist (although some characters are sexist, particularly Tommy DeVito),  as the film is about four men and stays about those four men, but the plot strand concerning Valli's daughter Francine (Freya Tingly) could have done with a scene or two more, just to buff it out and give it extra weight. It feels unnecessarily brushed over, when I would have liked it to be slightly more expanded upon.

And I say that fully aware that this film is 134 minutes long. That length can seem awfully, awfully long, as it did with last year's bloated sack of excess "American Hustle", with which this film shares musical theatricality and little else. The fact that I could have done with this film being longer says, roughly, just how much I enjoyed it. I'm loathe to say this, but I had a superb night at the movies with this one... Oh, what a night.