Mark Keresman  July 2014

Jersey Boys

In addition to ICON, Mark Keresman is a contributing writer for SF Weekly, East Bay Express, Pittsburgh City Paper, Paste, Jazz Review, downBeat, and the Manhattan Resident.

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    We’ve a biopic here, and since some people’s cultural awareness goes back only five or ten years, a little background is in order. The Four Seasons was a vocal group popular in the 1960s and ‘70s; their lead singer Frankie Valli had a parallel solo career. While some members played instruments, The Four Seasons was not a “rock band”—the lads sang orchestrated pop with a big rockin’ beat, distinctive harmonies,  and featured Valli’s expressive falsetto. The Seasons’ songs usually featured an agonized protagonist with his heart on his sleeve and/or against the world. Some of their songs dealt with classism, as in “I love you baby.” Their songs—they had many hits—are part of the life-soundtracks of a couple or three generations.   

    The film Jersey Boys is based on the musical play of the same name—it’s the story of Frankie and the lads, from their rocky working class/juvenile delinquent beginnings to being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The director and producer: Clint Eastwood, who in the mid-‘60s sang in the musical movie Paint Your Wagon. If you’re hoping for a bit of spot-the-star, forget it—most of the principals are played by players with musical/theatrical backgrounds. The only Big Star is Christopher Walken, who plays a Jersey Mob boss with a soft spot for the Four Seasons. As with The Runaways biopic, Boys focuses on basically two of the Seasons, lead singer Valli (John Lloyd Young, sounding a lot like the young Valli) and de facto “leader” Tommy (Vincent Piazza). Tommy is full of energy and drive but he’s not exactly subtle in his approach. Valli is a bit more level-headed—a scene of the lads’ booze-fueled hotel debauchery is contrasted by Valli chilling at home with his wife and children. These are the only two characters we get to “know.” A device not used in many movies nowadays—the central characters talk directly to the camera, providing “narration/commentary” on what’s going on—is both old-fashioned, refreshing, and a bit of a time-saver, telling instead of showing the audience.

Eastwood’s direction is lively but unfussy—he’s unafraid to linger on the musical numbers. Whereas in some musical biopics we get to hear only portions of songs, here we get the complete song. The film is over 130 minutes and while it feels long, it never drags. The acting is mostly very good. Where the film falters a little are the scenes of Valli’s conflict with his wife—they seem perfunctory and underwritten, as if from a Domestic Arguing in Film 101 class. We get to see and hear the group building their own sound/style, but we never know what inspired them initially, outside of a desire to become famous. The Seasons’ style had one foot in the Tin Pan Alley pop that appealed to their parents and the other foot in rhythm & blues/doo-wop territory—it would have been cool to actually see Valli and/or the others get fired up by an earlier vocal group’s performance. It also would’ve been nice to give the Seasons some musical context—the only other performers of the time we see/hear (for more than a few seconds) is the girl group The Angels (“My Boyfriend’s Back”). After all, The Four Seasons was one of the few USA pop groups to flourish despite the British Invasion, folk singers, and folk-rockers that effectively changed the game (In fact, in 1969 the Seasons released a “concept album” Genuine Imitation Life Gazette—while it was a commercial failure, John Lennon named it one of his favorite albums at the time.) Naturally, some events become “condensed” or skipped entirely—in the mid-‘70s, the Seasons had a huge comeback hit with “December 1963 What A Night.”

Overall, Jersey Boys is a very good film and very entertaining for lovers of 1960s vocal pop and Seasons fans, but like most biopics, it could have been better.