by Nathaniel R
A young man stares out of his bodega window, his favourite block coming alive in the reflection. This shot of Usnavi, our leading man and guide into the film version of Lin-Manuel Miranda's In the Heights is already beloved and with good reason. It gives you character (this man is something of a dreamer, caught between two places), world-building (the vibrant Latinx community of Washington Heights) and joyful genre specificity (the musical). It's not even the first clever moment in the movie at that, but something In the Heights builds up in its ever-escalating opening number after already providing you with gorgeous aerial shots romanticizing NYC as 'a city made of music', sounds from hoses, traffic, manhole covers, and alarm clocks as musical accompaniment, and introducing us to most of the main characters.
Above all else this visual beat as well as the larger song sequence that contains it, instills immediate confidence that the creative team, especially director Jon M. Chu (of Crazy Rich Asians fame) understand the oft-forgotten cinematic language of the film musical...
As a lifelong devotee of the genre who has spent quite a lot of time in Washington Heights (one of my best friends is Puerto Rican and used to live there), I felt both a rush of joy and a sense of relief from all the details and magic. One number in and the movie has already taken off. How high can it rise?
In the Heights began life as a Tony-winning musical that introduced composer/actor Lin-Manuel Miranda to the world seven years before he achieved household name status with the global sensation of Hamilton. In the film version he appears selling sno-cones (though he gets a random comical stinger, too, so sit through the credits) gifting the centerpiece role to Anthony Ramos, who played his son in Hamilton. You can feel In the Heights theatrical roots in its initial direct-to-camera sung narration, a staple in musical theater albeit minus the camera, but otherwise it's all cinema. The movie's corny framing device - Usnavi telling his story to a group of overly enthusiastic children -- is the script's weakest element which isn't surprising once you break it down. It's the kind of movie-specific addition that's often added to stage-to-screen pieces as replacement for stage narration. Since the narration is still there, inextricable from the song structure, the storytelling device is entirely redundant.
And "story" isn't the selling point of In The Heights, not really. The musical is instead a mosaic weaving in mini portraits of simple stories to paint a complex portrait of a whole community: Usnavi runs a local bodega with his teenage cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV, film debut) but dreams of relocating them both to the Dominican Republic to reopen his dad's old bar; Daniela (Tony nominee Daphne Rubin-Vega of Rent fame) runs a local beauty parlor with Carla (Stephanie Beatriz) and scene-stealer Cuca (Dascha Polanco, Orange is the New Black) but she's soon shutting down to take the operation to the South Bronx; Kevin Rosario (Emmy winner Jimmy Smits) runs a nearby car service where Usnavi's friend Benny (Corey Hawkins, Straight Outta Compton) works, but Kevin is financially strapped since his daughter Nina (Leslie Grace, film debut) is in her first year of college at an Ivy League school; Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), the block's much-desired beauty, isn't romantic about the neighborhood like her friends and is eager to escape and become a fashion designer; All of the characters are gently loved and often fed by the block's chosen-family matriarch Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz, the only member of the original Broadway cast to transfer her stage performance to the screen).
It's from this mosaic of endearing characters of all shapes and sizes and ages that the lively wonderfully choreographed and performed songs emerge. Though In the Heights is funny and high-spirited and inspirational, it's not without substance, commenting organically on issues like the political battle over Dreamers, being torn between your country of origin and where you've made your life, systemic racism in housing and careers, chosen family, and the cultural loss that comes from gentrification.
The cast is wonderful throughout each actor shining brightly in their big solos but also gamely and joyously melding into the ensemble. (Imagine casting only gifted musical performers in a musical; What a novel concept!). The perfect example of this is the climactic "Carnaval del Barrio" when Daphne Rubin-Vega's hairdresser riles up the whole neighborhood to dance and sing rather than merely sweat in the oppressive heat post-blackout when air-conditioners aren't working. One thing that's often lost from stage to screen is the energy of live performance but In the Heights doesn't misplace it. It's not just Rubin-Vega who brings it like there's a huge paying audience wanting to dance in their seats and laugh. Other favourites? Corey Hawkins charms and sings beautifully like a born romantic leading man, Melissa Barrera is electric and sexy in a big dance number "The Club", Gregory Diaz IV has lively comic timing, especially evident in the opening number and in "96,000", but brings it when the drama hits, and Olga Merediz shows those of us who missed the show on Broadway why she was Tony-nominated as Abuela.
Yet no one can steal the picture from Anthony Ramos. The actor first came to national attention in two roles in Hamilton, though there was plenty of room for his career to grow since neither were all that showcased in that insanely popular show. He moved on to a charming but small supporting role in A Star is Born (2018) as Lady Gaga's Gay Best Friend and now gets his own starmaking movie musical as follow-up. The performance has everything a leading man could want: charm, pathos, screen magnetism, romantic gestures, comic timing. Best of all, every clever lyric he spits or sings in Miranda's dizzying songs, and every gesture in his dancing feels utterly spontaneous like he's living it all in real time, in this moment only and the camera somehow captured it. This is a miraculous feat since there's nothing less spontaneous than singing complex lyrics and dancing fun choreography in gigantic setpieces while carrying an entire movie on your back. It's the most joyful leading-man work in a movie musical since Ewan McGregor's Christian in the seminal Moulin Rouge!
And finally a huge round of applause for Jon Chu's skill and care behind the camera. While so many other modern movie musicals feel slapped together with a limited understanding (or at best a stage-bound understanding) of what makes the form magical, Chu has either studied the form intently or was born to direct them. In the Heights pulls from classics seeking visual inspiration from Busby Berkeley spectacles in the pool performance of "96,000" (it's such movie musical bliss I never wanted it to end), and maybe Fred Astaire's Royal Wedding dance as Benny and Nina defy gravity together, their building spinning to accomodate their romantic dance ("When the Sun Goes Down").
Most importantly Chu and his expert craftsmen delicately but boisterously balance the entire movie on a highwire between realism and surrealism where dramatic musicals can best thrive. In the Heights has its feet on the ground and its head somewhere dreamier... not unlike Usnavi. When Abuela remembers her childhood as an immigrant in "Pacienda y Fe (Patience and Faith)", a subway transforms all around her transporting us back in time with her. When Vanessa's strolls down the street for her 'I want' song "I Won't Be Long Now", huge swaths of fabric billow and unfurl over the buildings of Washington Heights. None of these visual flourishes are spectacle for spectacle's sake (though they look sensational on a giant movie theater screen), but tethered to characterization, dreams, and story.
Images like these and that opening bodega reflection, that densely pack in information in imaginative ways while remaining light enough on their feet to leap and spin with velocity and precision are all too rare in modern movie musicals. In the Heights blessedly has an abundance of them. It lifts off early and rarely comes down again. A/A-
In the Heights is currently playing in movie theaters nationwide. It is also streaming on HBOMax (through July 11th) but the movie deserves and rewards the big screen so support it in a movie theater if you can.