‘Jersey Boys’ by Hugo Gomes – c7nema

In the wake of the success of Elvis and years before the Beatles fever, The Four Seasons was the band of the moment. Their singles still linger as successes, much of these, as Can not Take my Eyes off you , continue to be used until exhaustion in films and TV ads. Composed of four members, which all have different vocal tones, the The Four Season s had as lead singer Frankie Valli, whose angelic voice melted hearts and led to the top of best North American musical artists. The band is still active and in, despite several years on stage and successes, only in 1990 is joining the “ Hall of Fame” of rock ‘n’ roll. The legacy of success The Four Seasons originated books and even Broadway plays, two areas that served as the inspiration for Clint Eastwood to finally give the film a biography of the band has ever deserved.

Let’s be clear. Within the model biopic musical, Jersey Boys takes a step forward to be able to consolidate its melodic vein with the layout and narrative, this last point, focus on assigning the movie interesting and stable development characters. As the director spoke in several interviews, Jersey Boys is not designed to be a musical. Instead, Eastwood chose to dub his work a “ movie with music .”

The musical element is present and participates in the narrative, but the characters view these moments as part of their daily lives, away from the disposition of, for example, some of the 50s musical, where characters sing unleashed a glance. Thus, Jersey Boys functions as one of the raw materials from which it was adapted: the Broadway musical (based on the play by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, who also contributed to the argument). At the same time, Clint Eastwood circumvents the tendency to transcribe a spectacle in their entirety to the big screen and metamorphoses into a work of classicist and content in scenic and technical rigor.

We can say that Jersey Boys not in any way prejudice the health of the viewer. Incidentally, in that aspect, fun is an almost irresistible invitation alluded to some mythical phrase <> The Godfather , since we find certain influences of the “ mob movie “, this story Rise and impasses in the career of The Four Seasons .

Eastwood excels himself in what will likely be his best film since Gran Torino , showing a exemplary work in the reconstitution of time and the development of their characters (one of the most notorious cases is that of Frankie Valli, played by John Lloyd Young), while it reveals itself in an eminent actor’s director. The interpretations are priceless (Vincent Piazza works as well as humorous tape device, as a catalyst for dramatic emphasis) and the chemistry really exists in the fictional group of footage.

Jersey Boys still mine with playful references in the world of music and film, in particular the entry of Joe Pesci (the famous actor Goodfellas ) as an almost cartoonish figure. The only drawback is too flippant treatment of female characters promising, but far from escaping from its function as mere narrative frameworks. But none of this is really threatening the entertainment that this Jersey Boys can implement.

I dare even say that this is one of the best musical biopic of recent years. Yes, I dare

Best -. Development of the characters and the narrative
classicist The worst – the treatment of the female characters, the fear of the viewer in relation to music.

Hugo Gomes