Summary
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s original hit comes to the big screen with all the dazzle the medium has to offer. It’s a genuinely joyous celebration of the Latinx diaspora in America.
Lights up on Washington Heights at the break of day. Before Lin Manuel-Miranda shot to international mega-fame with Hamilton, he made his Broadway debut in 2008 with In the Heights. Working with playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes, versions of the play gestated from 1999 until the original Broadway version went on to win four Tony Awards including Best Musical.
Of course, no successful stage musical ever really has a ‘final’ version. Unlike the original production, IN THE HEIGHTS begins its adaptation with a new framing device. Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), seemingly in some tropical surroundings, tells a group of as-yet-unidentified kids about his life in New York’s Washington Heights running just another dime-a-dozen mom-and-pop stop-and-shop with his cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV). He dreams of returning to his childhood home in the Dominican Republic.
In the surrounding barrio, the locals get by with their own hopes and dreams. Nina (Leslie Grace) has returned home from college, disappointing her financially strapped father Kevin Rosario (Jimmy Smits) with news that she’s dropping out. Benny (Corey Hawkins), one of Mr, Rosario’s cab company employees, pines for Nina. Hairdresser Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), the object of Usnavi’s affections, just wants to get out. Holding them all together is their elderly abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz): she’s not really their abuela but she practically raised this misfit group.
Following a properly dazzling opening title song — arguably one of the best pre-titles sequences we’ve seen in quite a while — this adaptation settles into its own rhythm. While reasonably faithful to the stage version, albeit with a few song changes and character omissions, director John M. Cho’s film certainly expands on the 2008 play with topical references to DACA and micro-aggressions experienced by the Latinx community.
Cho’s film is never anything less than bright and energetic although it makes a few radical tonal shifts throughout. The core songs are excellent (‘96,000’ in particular, as well as the build-up to the pivotal blackout). Yet the film seems to forget it’s a musical for long stretches, especially when it gets wrapped up in the new material. This ultimately results in the loss of some momentum in the traditional second act.
Yet it’s the central performances that make this joyful. Ramos, who most will know as Laurens/Philip from Hamilton, reprises a role he briefly played at the 2018 Kennedy Center production. Barrera, whose aspirational number ‘It Won’t Be Long Now’ is an early highlight, makes her mark here. Similarly, it’s great to see established names like Smits, Brooklyn 99’s Stephanie Beatriz and Orange is the New Black’s Dascha Polanco playing against type and having a ball. Original Broadway cast member Olga Merediz has an absolute showstopper with ‘Paciencia y Fe,’ while fellow board treaders Miranda and Christopher, Seth Stewart and Javier Muñoz turn up in amusing cameos.
On a technical level, Cho’s film is one of the most impressive since the heyday of screen musicals. Taking place in a pool, ‘96,000’ was shot over two days and features over 500 extras. Hawkins and Grace get their Fred and Ginger moment, dancing up the side of a building, in ‘When the Sun Goes Down.’
IN THE HEIGHTS has already found its core audience, and reports of people dancing in the cinemas are wonderful to hear after a long year of theatre closures. Quibbles and excessive length aside, this kind of celebration is what cinema is all about.
2021 | USA | DIRECTOR: John M. Cho | WRITERS: Quiara Alegría Hudes, Lin-Manuel Miranda | CAST: Anthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, Leslie Grace, Melissa Barrera, Olga Merediz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Gregory Diaz IV, Jimmy Smits | DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros. Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 143 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 24 June 2021 (AUS)
