Film Review: Jersey Boys

Jersey Boys. Rated M (frequent coarse language). 134 minutes. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Screenplay by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice.

Verdict: Clint Eastwood delivers the sensational Jersey Boys to the screen flawlessly.

Since its Broadway premiere in 2005, Brickman and Elice’s music theatre version of Jersey Boys has played to critical and public acclaim all over the world. Boasting the perfect rags-to-riches and back to rags again story about four boys from New Jersey who would achieve international fame as The Four Seasons, and a soundtrack to die for, this cinematic adaptation is simply perfection.

Eastwood (as he proved with Million Dollar Baby and Changeling to name just two of his directorial triumphs), understands the intimacy of human drama possibly better than any director working in cinema today. With his constant collaborators, cinematographer Tom Stern and production designer James Murakami, Eastwood painstakingly recreates the era to perfection, acknowledging the work’s origins with a lavish, multi-dimensional theatrical sensibility.

John Lloyd Young (who played Frankie Valli on Broadway) leads an exceptionally multi-talented ensemble, who embrace the material with consummate passion and skill. It’s not hard to see why Lloyd Young won practically every award going for his Broadway debut performance as Valli. Not only does he account for the performer’s powerful falsetto magnificently, Lloyd Young’s is an un-showy performance of immense musical and emotional depth.

Vincent Piazza (Boardwalk Empire) is equally good as the charismatic Tommy DeVito, whose determination to create a better life for himself and his friends would derail spectacularly as the group began to achieve its well-deserved recognition. Piazza brings the loveable rogue to the screen beautifully, and if it is impossible to dislike him for the role he plays in the group’s final years together, it’s because without him, they would never have existed.

It’s unlikely that nostalgia buffs will have a better time in the cinema this year than with this lovingly crafted film from a director who, somehow, just keeps getting better and better.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.