In the Heights<\/em> flies in the face of that resistance. It began on the stage, first off-Broadway and then on, with music and lyrics by a pre-Hamilton<\/a><\/em> Lin-Manuel Miranda (who also played the leading role) and book by future Pulitzer winner Quiara Alegria Hudes, who also penned the screenplay adaptation. It is the story, we\u2019re told at its outset, \u201cof a block that was disappearing” in “Nueva York.\u201d That block is in the uptown neighborhood of Washington Heights; the time is the period up to, during, and after a days-long, heat-prompted blackout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Full disclosure: I spent the last eight years living in Washington Heights, and can firmly testify that the text is well-steeped in the details (you do, indeed, take the escalator if you get off at 181st). But more importantly, Hudes and Miranda, and the film\u2019s director Jon M. Chu, hone in on the sounds and rhythm of the block, and how you find yourself making music out of your drudgery. Most importantly, they capture the warmth, familiarity, and goodwill of neighborhood life \u2013 and the characters therein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is Claudia (Olga Merediz, reprising her stage role), the block\u2019s collective abuela, who gets the film\u2019s most inspired (and moving) single sequence, a beautiful dream walk through her long life, staged on a series of subway cars and platforms. There are Daniela (Daphne Rubin-Vega), Carla (Stephanie Beatriz), and Cuca (Dascha Polanco), the gossips of the nail and hair salon, who function as a kind of Greek chorus \u2013 and are on their way out of the neighborhood, \u201cpriced out\u201d to Grand Concourse in the Bronx.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is Kevin Rosario (Jimmy Smits), who owns the car service, and his daughter and apple of his eye, Nina (Leslie Grace), just back from Stanford, and feeling some kind of way about it; her performance, and her heartbreaking ballad of confession, are keenly attuned to the specific misery of going away with everyone\u2019s hopes pinned to your success, and feeling like you\u2019ve failed them. \u201cYou can\u2019t keep putting your life\u2019s work on my shoulders,\u201d she tells her father, and he doesn\u2019t quite know how to take it. Smits, perpetually undervalued, does some of his best work to date here, painting a portrait of wounded pride and barely hidden desperation \u2013 note how, when an employee realizes, and notes, \u201cYou never finished high school,\u201d he takes a modest beat before proudly replying, \u201cBut Nina did.\u201d There is a lot going on <\/em>in that beat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That employee is Benny, Nina\u2019s on-again, off-again boyfriend, and played by Straight Outta Compton<\/em> alum Corey Hawkins, who works every scene like he\u2019s stealing it, and usually is. But the primary focus of the ensemble cast is Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), who runs his late father\u2019s corner bodega \u2013 the perfectly, generically named City Mart Deli \u2013 while dreaming of returning to the Dominican Republic, and of dating Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), the salon\u2019s nail stylist, who herself dreams of being a downtown fashion designer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s been a long time since I\u2019ve felt this invested in an on-screen couple, but you just want them to make it happen \u2013 they\u2019re both so charming and charismatic and attractive, but more importantly, they\u2019re similarly starry-eyed in their hopes and dreams. And their dynamic is delightful; she\u2019s the forward, confident one, and he\u2019s so nervous<\/em> around her, which both garners some laughs and causes some complications. (Also of note in the supporting ranks is Marc Anthony, who conveys an entire wretched history and bleak future in but one short scene, with just a few words and gestures.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chu\u2019s direction is just a little too slick \u2013 particularly in the musical numbers, which he frames and cuts like he\u2019s still shooting the sleek surfaces of Crazy Rich Asians<\/a>.<\/em> It\u2019s not that there\u2019s no precedent for this approach; he sometimes seems to be throwing back to glossy NYC musicals like On the Town<\/em> and Bells are Ringing<\/em>. But that\u2019s an uneasy fit for this story of working class people, an aesthetic that is somewhat at odds with the authenticity of the script and lyrics, and their real life concerns (like immigration and gentrification). Plus, those films were mostly shot on back lots, and though In the Heights<\/em> is shot on location, its Heights often feels inhabited \u2013 yet not really lived in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But he does add some lovely little touches, like the clever use of floating animation during a round-robin of rhymes, and a late dance sequence whose staging is so ingenious, I won\u2019t rob you of its surprise. And he makes elegant and inventive use of real neighborhood locations, capturing the hustle-bustle of J. Hood Wright Park, or the combination of cooling down and showing off at the Highbridge Pool (shot, unsurprisingly but inspiredly, like a Busby Berkeley number). It\u2019s a great New York movie \u2013 and more specifically, a great New York in the summer movie, with sequences of absolute, uncut joy (like the makeshift \u201cCarnaval del Barrio,\u201d which is like a shot of cinematic adrenaline).<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are real ideas at work here (most potently the concept of powerlessness in the face of a shifting neighborhood \u2013 do you deal, fight, adjust, or all of the above), but what\u2019s most striking about In the Heights<\/em> is the unapologetic, almost operatic, romanticism at its center. Here and in Hamilton<\/em>, Miranda and his collaborators refuse to cloak these big emotions in irony, or cynicism, or any of the guards most artists \u2013 most people<\/em>, in fact \u2013 put up to keep themselves from really feeling things. It\u2019s risky, and occasionally it ventures into the realm of corn. But it\u2019s also why this work is so affecting; it\u2019s so open-hearted that even the picture\u2019s occasional too-shiny surfaces can\u2019t keep that at bay. “In the Heights” is now on HBO Max<\/a> and in theaters Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/in-the-heights2-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/crookedc-01.svg\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\nB+<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n