NEW YORK — At the heart of “New York, New York,” the supersized new musical directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman at the St. James Theatre, is an unanswered question.

Does this show want to be a kind of East Coast “La La Land,” a romantic and tourist-friendly ode to the aesthetic charms and transformational powers of the greatest city in the world, or was this blue-chip crew of creatives going for something much grittier, something more attuned with the racially charged problems of modern-day America?

I suspect their answer would be that they were trying to do both. And, for sure, New Yorkers themselves often vacillate between believing idealistic lines like “these small town blues, they are melting away” and real-world worries about ballooning rent, crime on the streets and the tenuous security of their jobs.

But in a single Broadway musical, especially one based on a famously edgy and jazzy 1977 Martin Scorsese movie musical, you have to pick your lane, lest your audience check out from a story where one scene does not flow logically into the next.

A case in point here: “New York, New York” which is credited to five different lyricists and book writers, including John Kander and the late Fred Ebb, David Thompson, Sharon Washington and Lin-Manuel Miranda (contributing additional material), is very much about the city’s demonstrably racist past. And yet, in certainly other moments, everyone in the show also seems to live in exactly the same neighborhoods, hanging together from neighboring tiny balconies in the late 1940s.

So what are we talking here, fantasy or reality? It’s hard to tell. It feels like all of the writers got to do their thing and make their points, but no one insisted on everyone getting on board with the same style and story.

Frankly, and just as problematically, it’s also very hard to invest in the romantic future of the two leading characters. Those would be Francine Evans and Jimmy Doyle, played by Anna Uzele (in the Liza Minnelli role) and Colton Ryan (in the Robert De Niro part).

Jimmy, you may recall from the movie, may be attractive, but he is no romantic partner of the year. He’s a self-involved and unreliable egotist, otherwise known as the Hollywood version of a professional musician. But the film relied on the idea that an audience could still pull for him and Anna, a huge musical talent and deeply impassioned lover who did not necessarily make the best choice in men — but who still tried to make it through the rain of her life with charisma and aplomb.

Here, both Uzele and Ryan are spirited singers and lively solo players, but it feels like they exist on separate planes. They certainly communicate their disappointment with each other well, as they both try to “make it here” (as the title song demands) but they don’t show any particular need for, or infatuation with, each other, or, indeed for love in general. It’s still the picture of a dysfunctional relationship, but if there is no initial function, otherwise known as passion, then who cares?

“New York, New York” did not, of course, come with a traditional musical-theater score; Kander and Ebb wrote just five songs for the film, including the cabaret standard “The World Goes Round” and “Happy Endings,” which was cut from the initial release of what was a very long movie, but included here. Broadway theatergoers also get previously unheard, but newly inserted, Kander and Ebb songs like “I’m What’s Happening Now“ (which is lovely) and “A Simple Thing Like That” and some numbers with lyrics that were revised by Miranda.

Stroman, though, goes with the dominant convention of actors miming the playing of instruments with the sound coming from the pit. You can see the logic of that (De Niro didn’t play the sax well either). But it still feels strange to not integrate the musicians in a more meaningful way with the songs and choreography, especially given the thrust of material that is all about musicalizing the emotions of a big city.

The show is well stocked with enthusiastic newcomers (such as Angel Sigala) and veteran Broadway hands, including the excellent Emily Skinner, playing a traumatized music teacher trying to help a young Jewish kid named Alex (Oliver Prose) get into Julliard.

Indeed, one of the main strengths of the piece is its rich exploration of how post-war New York was filled with people suffering from various degrees of post-traumatic stress, even if nobody used those actual words.

“New York, New York” could have used a clarifying tryout. Then again, some in its audience won’t worry so much about its thematic muddles: Beowulf Boritt’s set, as lit by Ken Billington, shows you sunsets peeking through the city’s vintage skyscrapers, bathing Manhattan’s avenues in warmth and hope. There is a lovely dance number involving rain in the city that showcases all that Stroman does so well. And there is a jazzy finale that puts Uzele up close to the audience as the music heats up the St. James. Many visitors will buy a show that gives them so much of what they think of as part of a New York visit.

In those final moments, you think to yourself that all this show really needed was a greatly enhanced sense that New Yorkers actually do fall in love with each other because they are otherwise lonely. Just like everywhere else.

———

(At the St. James Theatre, 246 W. 44th St., New York; newyorknewyorkbroadway.com )