The only Broadway adaptation Clint Eastwood ever directed was a flop

Musicals are practically scientifically designed to lift your mood. Screw the plot, you can’t help but get a little excited watching people cut up a rug while singing about their innermost feelings for over two hours. It’s a fundamental principle that allowed Broadway titans like Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber to turn tragic love stories and gothic horror thrillers into crowd-pleasing spectacles about murder, revenge and, most horrifying of all, dealing with a needy, selfish protagonist to reinterpret actors. Even if they end in heartache and despair, you’ll leave the theater humming their catchiest catchy tunes in an endorphin rush (or, if you just watched “Cats” for the first timemaybe a different kind of high).

What happens when you hire Clint Eastwood, the authority on 21st-century cinematic melancholy, to turn your Broadway hit into a film? You get Jersey Boys, possibly one of the darkest and darkest musicals ever brought to the screen. If you’ve ever wondered whether “Mystic River” or even “Million Dollar Baby” might be a little less depressing if their characters sang about their feelings in between moments of fear, loss and turmoil, this is the answer , looking at the results here, is… not really. While it’s not hard to understand why “Jersey Boys” was a flop upon its release in 2014, that same darkness also makes it unique in the modern film music landscape.

Eastwood’s grounded, gritty portrayal of the rapid rise of rock ‘n’ roll sensation The Four Seasons and the good (and especially bad) times of the 1960s that followed is more true to the source material than you might imagine. The original jukebox Broadway musical, written by Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman (yes, as in the Oscar-winning “Annie Hall” co-writer), eschews the idea of being a fantastical depiction of the band’s story and presents feels like a kind of live performance theater documentary. Fittingly, “Man With No Name” generally avoids the kind of flights of fancy you find in films a biographical musical like “Rocketman.” Instead, almost all of the songs are diegetic and presented in a realistic light (apart from the end credits), whether it’s the Seasons’ live singing scenes in sequences that Eastwood and his trusty cameraman Tom Stern shoot through filming with their trademark steady, Straightforward reporting is accompanied by muted black and brown color palettes or the group’s music being used as a soundtrack for montages, many of which focus on the sadder beats in the band’s history.

The result is a film that feels a bit like a bad version of “That Thing You Do!” …and that’s even before the Seasons’ breakthrough success (thanks to all-time pop classics like “Sherry” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry”) is marred by the band’s infighting, mob debt, and family woes . But while Tom Hanks’ musical dramedy about a fictional ’60s band skyrocketing on the Billboard charts mostly manages to balance its sweet nostalgia with more sobering moments, Eastwood’s relentlessly dark approach clashes with the scenes in which “Jersey Boys” wants to be more relaxed – hearty and charming. Most people also agree on this point, as the film shows Reviews from Rotten Tomatoes (51 percent from critics, with the audience rating only slightly higher at 62 percent) and disappointing box office results ($67 million worldwide on a budget of $40 million).

Still, “Jersey Boys” is certainly just as personal as it is, with its soulful music, themes of flawed masculinity and a wistful story about the cost of living in the spotlight anything else Eastwood has ever directed. Despite its missteps, it’s essentially an anti-Broadway crowd-pleaser and the all-too-rare example of a musical that might leave you feeling even more desperate than before. (You know, if that’s your thing). .)