In The Heights is joyous and democratically overcrowded

The dazzling movie adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's breakout musical was supposed to open in theatres when Trump was in office

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      In the Heights

      Starring Anthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, and Leslie Grace. Available on June 11 on digital and VOD services.

      In The Heights is so joyous, vibrant, and visually wondrous that it mostly gets away with having next to no plot.

      The adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s breakout musical is a loving bachata and hip-hop swan song to the Latinx community in Washington Heights, who are largely Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. The movie is overloaded with a winning cast and knockout musical numbers, all celebrating the culture in a community feeling the strain of gentrification. A win for some of these characters is their ability to find themselves in the exact same place, from beginning to end, which is also what makes the movie so dramatically inert.

      The main conflicts involve characters watching clocks or calendars, wondering how much longer they’ll continue living or working in the neighbourhood, which can be rather trying when the movie itself is two-and-a-half hours long. At least Broadway has intermissions. Melissa Barrera’s Vanessa doesn’t know whether she can or should get an apartment downtown. Singer Leslie Grace’s Nina has to decide whether she should stay in Stanford or move back to Washington Heights. These people and others orbit Anthony Ramos’ Usnavi (the role Miranda played on stage). He runs the corner bodega but plans to pack it in and realize his lifelong dream of moving back to the Dominican Republic and setting up shop on the beach.

      Their individual dilemmas stretch things to the limit but there are enough personalities in the mix to keep it involving. Chief among them are Ramos and Barrera. The two magnetic leads have a chemistry that draw us in and keep us invested in what’s between Usnavi and Vanessa—whether its sexual tension or the subway stops and airports after they make their moves.

      Corey Hawkins is a cheerful blast of energy with excellent flows as Usnavi’s best friend and Nina’s old boyfriend. As Nina, Grace is a bit too poised. In an easily overlooked role, Jimmy Smits as Nina’s warm, loving but overbearing father is astonishing. You see the weight on his shoulders and right through the way he tries to make it look easy for the comfort of others. Very few actors could find the vulnerability in that performance the way Smits does.

      Other actors, like a Brooklyn 99’s delightful Stephanie Beatriz, find their itty bitty moments to dazzle in a democratically overcrowded affair. Now that he’s been banned from social media, we won’t get Donald Trump’s reaction to a movie where so many Latin-Americans sing soulfully and triumphantly about social mobility and where they find home. A new subplot about one character’s illegal status was probably added to speak directly at Trump, who was in campaign mode when In The Heights was supposed to open last summer. The issue remains urgent. However, the storyline adds more drag to an already bloated affair.

      But even the slow moments or the numbers that don’t quite get your blood flowing have something to catch your eye. Jon. M Chu, the director who set the Step Up franchise on the right path with its second instalment, doesn’t slouch when it comes to making the movie stand out from the stage. And it often feels like In The Heights is about to bust loose from the screen.

      Chu amplifies every moment big and small, tossing around animations and special effects—like a maintenance hole that spins like a turntable—and astonishing with incredibly choreographed dances and countless setups. Some numbers are bigger and better than others: namely the pool party eruption of 96,000, the rousing, comic, and melancholic celebration in Carnaval Del Barrio and the jaw-dropping table-setter, In The Heights.

      The movie is too long, to be certain. But we’ll be playing our fave numbers on a loop all summer.

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