In The Heights: Review by @Kush_Hayes
Anyone who knows me would know that Im not in the demographic for Lin-Manuel Mirandas In The Heights. Or maybe I wasnt when I was still South of Forty. Now that we’re past it, maybe we’ve become more open to the ideas of Musicals as a genre we might enjoy now. Crazier things have happened, see my review for The Greatest Showman.
Despite not having seen or even heard Hamilton, the show that made Lin-Manuel Miranda a household name, I didnt really know what to expect from this movie. But I knew that The Powers That Be had such great hope for it that they had no problem delaying it a full year. Where they went wrong is allowing people to see it at home on everyones inferior televisions.
We start our film with an eight minute song meeting not only our main character Usnavi, but the entire cast of feature players that reside within the neighborhood of New Yorks Washington Heights as they all get their morning cups of coffee from Usnavis family Bodega. Usnavis father, who has passed away before the movie even starts, immigrated from The Dominican Republic and worked himself to death to provide a better life for his children in The United States. Despite all that, Usnavi is working himself to death trying to get back to The DR. Its a motivation that is so strange even his 12 y/o Cousin Sonny is making fun of him for it.
Speaking of hard work, we meet Jimmy Smits who plays Kevin the Successful Self Made Man and Proud Father who is trying to put his daughter Nina through Stanford. And despite all of his hard work, Nina is thinking of throwing it all away because shes having a hard time finding the support she had back in the old neighborhood.
This film is filled only with characters you like hanging out with. If theres a character in this film you dont like, they probably dont say anything anyway. Abuela Claudia the neighborhood Grandmother, Benny the Dispatch man - who actually has the best dance number with Nina later in the film, The Hairdressers and the gossip they spread and Vanessa the young go getter who is trying to find success in her own lane.
Jon M. Chu who is also now a household name thanks to the success of Crazy Rich Asians, brings out some intense performances and even enhances some of them with fantastic visuals that implores the viewer to see this on as large a screen as possible. Chu who commercially cut his teeth with some of the Step Up sequels plus a few concert films, knows how to navigate the camera around all the action making things literally pop off screen.
I cant overstate that the performances within this film are spectacular. The Nighclub, The Side of the Building and even the Hairdressers Farewell could all be the closers of any three seperate movies but we get them and more in this.
My biggest negatives are that it is long. I wish we could absorb all this information in 100 minutes. I also felt that Mirands 1.5 scenes as the snowcone shaver Piraguero are unnecessary. They add nothing to story. We need to know about this character like we need to know about the neighborhood postman, who isnt even a character til I just made him up right now. And lastly, I wish we had some kind of conflict or main antagonist, but I guess Life is conflict enough for this neighborhood.
This is an event that should be seen on the big screen, again, as large as possible with the best sound system available. Watching this on HBOMax first would be doing yourself a disservice.
It may be too too early to talk about Little Gold Trophies in February, I really think youre going to be hearing a lot of celebration for this film over the year. As stated at the top of this review, Im not a musical fan, but I dare anyone to try to top this in 2021.
Four Blueberries out of Five
Plus: Believe The Hype
Rated PG-13 for some language and suggestive references
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