An expansive, splashy, eminently entertaining piece of movie musical elation, the big screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s celebrated In the Heights is a winning movie that marries an endearing, contemporary narrative and music with inspired, classically mounted production numbers that often soar, courtesy of a vibrant cast and Crazy Rich Asians director John M. Chu’s fine visual sensibility.
First things first – In the Heights is an unmistakable big screen experience, which may sound like a novelty given that it is premiering simultaneously on HBO Max. But even the highest end home theater setup can’t match the visual and aural delight of seeing this colorful movie in a state-of-the-art Dolby Cinema house.
In the Heights, a 2008 Tony-winning musical that Miranda created before a little project named Hamilton (you may have heard of it) is, like its successor, a movie about immigrants and visions for building the future. But this time the milieu is Manhattan’s Washington Heights and its largely Latin tapestry of dreamers, strivers, lovers and families with intertwined personal/cultural identities and an unshakable sense of community.
A sparkling film loaded with engaging young talent, it is a love letter to New York City and its denizens, here a blend of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Cubans, some blood relatives and some informal family; their ties are deep.
Calling to mind the vibrant community pizzaz of Spike Lee’s Brooklyn-set Do the Right Thing (though eschewing its sociopolitical statement), also set on a New York City block on the summer’s hottest day, In the Heights features an ensemble of friends and neighbors in search of better lives.
At the center is bodega owner Usnavi de la Vega (star-making Anthony Ramos), who dreams of closing up the corner shop and relocating to the Dominican Republic of his family’s heritage to refurbish his late father’s dilapidated, beachside bar, appropriately named El Sueñito. A clever framing device finds him in the tropical paradise narrating the picture’s story proper, about a “disappearing neighborhood,” to a handful of inquisitive adolescents.
Usnavi pines for salon worker Vanessa (played by a knockout Melissa Barrera), desperate to reinvent herself as a downtown fashion designer. Back from Stanford is superstar academic Nina (lovely Leslie Grace), homesick and considering dropping out; ex Benny (Corey Hawkins) supports Nina’s independence while working as a dispatcher for her father Kevin (Jimmy Smits), whose taxi company funds her tuition.
Usnavi’s teen cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV) crushes on Nina, but will later face a more serious, seemingly out-of-reach goal. Daniela (Rent star Daphne Rubin-Vega) owns the local salon and plans to move the business out of Washington Heights. And the beloved matriarch of this community is kindly, aged Cuban immigrant Abuela Claudia (Tony winner Olga Merediz), everyone’s designated grandmother and the neighborhood’s longest resident.
This collection of exuberant entertainers literally leaps off the screen (courtesy of choreographer Christopher Scott) in Chu’s staging of several superbly mounted production numbers: there’s a bravura nod to Busby Berkeley/Esther Williams at the public Highbridge Pool where hundreds of extras frolic to inspired, water choreography; a beautifully stylized trip back in time on a Manhattan subway car en route to 1940s Havana; a couple dancing at sunset, horizontally off a fire escape on the side of a walk-up, framed by the George Washington Bridge; a high-energy nightclub number capturing the euphoria and confusion of a first date; a rowdy “carnaval del barrio” enervating the community after a collective loss; and a marvelous, extended blackout sequence where the streets come alive in darkness.
This is all stunning entertainment. Yet despite the glossy romanticism of Chu’s production, the picture isn’t merely fantasy feel good, considering as it does the plight of Dreamers and the undocumented, and the reality that as accomplished as you might be – even if you get “out” to the Ivy League – you will still encounter racist, cultural biases. Gentrification also looms, as does the notion that an unclaimed, winning $96,000 lottery ticket would transform the lives of any one of the neighborhood’s hardworking residents.
These developments are presented with sincerity and emotion, but anyone looking for penetrating insights into such issues won’t find them here given that the both its director and creator are populist entertainers. Chu, whose extravagant lensing of the entertaining Crazy Rich Asians provided a sheen of real dazzle (recall the wedding scene) over a Cinderella tale hinting at richer class anxieties while dressed up in the highest style eye candy; its sometimes brutal savagery was dialed down in favor of a grand, happy ending. And Miranda (who turns up in brief, supporting role as street refreshment vendor Mr. Piraguero), by nature a showman first, has a canny commercial heart and inspired knack for making stirring entertainment from an audacious pastiche of styles, cultures and popular zeitgeist. They are perfectly matched when it comes to gently injecting social commentary into a fairy-tale packaged with a pretty bow; unwrapping their gift reveals more shiny new toy to enjoy than Pandora’s Box to ponder. And that’s just fine.
In Ramos, Miranda has done his show proud (and the audience a big favor) by passing the baton of the role he originated to the open-hearted and supremely talented newcomer. The young star, whom Miranda cast in Hamilton (after ironically rejecting him for In the Heights onstage) and who has been carving out a movie career that featured a charming as all get out performance as Lady Gaga’s best friend in A Star is Born, anchors this film with massive appeal.
As Usnavi, the young actor is a singer-dancer-actor extraordinaire, funny, unguarded and genuine throughout, right to a few touching moments near the picture’s end. In one, he simply stares from a window pondering if he has made the right decision for his future. It’s a star turn, and the announcement of a new American leading man. He has “it” every moment onscreen, and by the time the 143-minute picture concludes he achieves a sort of wistfulness borne of maturity and life lessons that has been earned, scene-for-scene.
For those who have seen the show theatrically, the film version delivers a stronger, more urgent variation on the material – it seems improved in the hands of this cast and director. It isn’t perfect – the pacing flags a bit at its midpoint between songs, and the music, while ingeniously written and performed with real vitality and emotion, is not quite on the level of other musicals (including Hamilton) with signature songs that send you out of the theater humming, in search of the soundtrack or cast album. When it concludes, it is difficult to recall the individual songs (a fusion of Latin, hip hop, pop and R&B stylings), which are perhaps less distinctive than the lavish production that supports them – but you won’t forget Chu’s dynamic staging, even if their melodies escape you given the sheer volume of songs.
No matter. Why quibble with such a passionate, colorful, endearing party? In the Heights is the best time to be had at the movies this year.
4 stars.
