Normally, I don’t much go for musicals. I can buy a lot of crazy stuff in movies in genres like horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, but have everyone spontaneously break into song and dance, and somehow my suspension of disbelief leaks away unless it’s a cartoon. I’ll give more benefit of the doubt to a cartoon. However, I do try to see as much as I can, so I was all set to watch the cinematic adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s other Broadway show In the Heights on HBO Max. I’ve caught the other Warner Brothers new releases that way.
But then I saw a trailer that was mostly just one musical production for a song where various characters sing what they would do with $96,000. And…it was kinda amazing. I know myself well enough to know I would probably be too easily distracted if I tried to watch this at home (see above on my overall feelings for musicals), and what I saw more or less demanded I see it on the big screen. So, yeah, I went out to the multiplex to see In the Heights.
Set up as a story that Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) is telling to a group of kids including his daughter on a tropical beach, we’re told of the shrinking New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights. It’s a block full of dreamers, including Usnavi who wants to go back to the Dominican Republic and take over his late father’s business. Others include Vanessa (Melissa Barrerra), the neighborhood beauty, object of Usnavi’s affections, and a wannabe fashion designer; Nina (Leslie Grace), daughter of the owner of a taxi service (Jimmy Smits), who does not want to go back to the expensive college her father’s sold half his business to put her through; Benny (Corey Hawkins), Nina’s love interest and her father’s best dispatcher; Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV), Usnavi’s cousin, a Dreamer who wants to stay in the neighborhood; and Claudia (Olga Merediz), the old woman who acts as Abuela to the entire neighborhood. All of these people have plans that they may or may not be able to achieve, but the neighborhood is there for them as long as they stay there.
There’s a lot going on in this film. While much of the movie’s soundtrack is rousing and bouncy, with a lot of great choreography of both human dancers and the camera, it still takes time to touch on some fairly serious topics, most notably gentrification, racism, and the limits placed on undocumented immigrants. However, the movie doesn’t dwell on those issues so much as subsume them to the background or imply them in many cases. if anything, the movie is about the people realizing their dreams, namely their real dreams and not just what they think they want.
Now, as I said above, I tend to find musicals to be the least realistic of the various genres out there. Yes, even horror, sci-fi, and fantasy when done right are in my mind more realistic genres than musicals since the good ones at least still use base human behavior in them, but you can’t say that about musicals when, you know, people just start singing. However, director Jon M. Chu does what would make this work best for me: he makes it inherently unrealistic in its presentation with interesting camera angles, movements, cuts, and effects. It’s a world where people will set up a Busby Berkley-style dance sequence in a pool over the prospect of lottery winnings that wouldn’t look out of place if Esther Williams was singing somewhere, or a film where an uncertain young girl will see a younger version of herself dancing along the other side of the street. If you’re gonna do a musical, go for broke.
I ended up really liking this. Most of the characters get a rousing solo with Abuelo Claudia’s being my favorite, especially once I figured out what the song meant. Is it like many musicals where everyone more or less gets a happy ending? Yes, but it’s a more realistic form of happiness than many musicals seem to go for. It’s about people realizing what they want is not always what they think it is, and that works for me. If anything, I found it odd that I felt the weakest solo went to Miranda in his small role as a street vendor. But even that largely worked for setting up what the neighborhood was and what the people were up against. I wouldn’t say that between this and Hamilton I am now a Miranda superfan, but I think I can see why many people are.
Grade: A
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