In The Heights Review

This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review every movie I see.

Wow, wow, wow! What a night this has been! I'll be honest, this might be a smidge of a biased review partially because I had such an amazing experience with this movie. Yeah, that's right, I saw this movie a month early, and this is actually my first ever advanced screening! My college announced free passes for the movie, so I signed up for one and coincidentally ran into a friend of mine from my old high school who also goes to my college. I'd been meaning to hang out with her for forever, and running into each other and realizing we were BOTH going to see the film was absolutely amazing. This is also the first time I've been in a theater since February of last year, with Birds of Prey being the last film I saw before everything shut down (let me tell you, that's a disappointing last movie to see in theaters). All in all, this was just an absolute blast of a night and one that I won't soon forget, so maybe I'm partially biased in giving this film five stars because of that, but I'll be darned if I didn't also think it's the best film musical I've seen in a long time.

This review is actually coming from someone who doesn't have an original attachment to In The Heights. It's funny, you'd think with how much I love Lin-Manuel Miranda, I've have jumped all over the soundtrack by now. However, since this wasn't a sing-through musical like Hamilton or an easily accessible Disney movie like Moana or a musical that's just straight up on YouTube like 21 Chump Street, I think I wanted to wait until I could actually see the context of the entire story before I settled down and took in the soundtrack. Well, this was my chance, and oh my goodness, what a love letter to musicals this is. I adore it when musical films remember their stage roots but play with their formulas in a way that they only could in a movie. There is some absolutely jaw-dropping choreography and editing in here, and a lot of it is combined together in a way that feels like you're watching a staged production, but couldn't be executed properly outside the venue of a movie. This, to me, is a stage adaptation done right, a movie that enhances the world-building of what was on stage by taking the staging and dance sequences to the next level, but still remaining loyal to the original script and tone of the show. In my opinion, this film does that absolutely perfectly. Aside from a few lines of dialogue that were clearly modernized to adapt the musical to 2021 (which honestly fit really well in the context of the film), I can't tell you how much of this musical was re-written and how much is a part of the original script, it's incorporated that seamlessly.

Maybe a big reason for that is because it isn't just Lin Manuel Miranda who has official involvement with this production, the original scriptwriter Quiara Alegria Hudes also writes the screenplay for this feature film adaptation, and everything about both of their writing styles just meshes together so perfectly and makes these characters burst off the screen with life. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Lin-Manuel has this unprecedented ability to write songs in a way where if you stripped away all of the music from underneath the lyrics, it would still work as independent dialogue-driven conversations. I have absolutely no idea how he does it as ingeniously as he does, but much like every other work of his I've loved (which is all of them, to be honest), In The Heights has that same dynamic amongst characters. The character developments lives in the music -- key changes during arguments, fast-paced rapping during awkward stumbles in conversation, chill beats as the city comes to a standstill. The music of this film becomes a part of the rhythm of Washington Heights as a city, with various choreography choices made to make the characters' actions match the beat of the instrumentals and with each tonal choice integrating itself perfectly into what makes Washington Heights stand out as a community. The musical format becomes integral to the storytelling of this city, and it's absolutely brilliant.

Oh, and let's not forget about the performances. Knowing that Lin-Manuel played Usnavi in the original Broadway production, it's honestly now hard for me to imagine him in the role because Anthony freaking Ramos FINALLY gets his chance to shine in a lead role in a film. My God, does he nail this character. It's definitely very similar to characters he's played in the past in regards to his awkward charms, but he's so perfect for it you don't even notice. I could go on and on about everyone in this film, but in particular, I want to shout out Melissa Barrera, Leslie Grade, Corey Hawkins, Olga Merediz, and Jimmy Smits for their absolutely phenomenal acting and singing here. At this point, I basically just see the cast of this film, it'll be weird going back and listening to the full Broadway soundtrack with that cast because I'm now to used to how amazingly these roles were played in this film. Of course, if you've seen the trailer, you know that Lin-Manuel himself makes an appearance, so all I'm gonna say about him is that he put himself in what I believe is the perfect role for this particular film. Oh, and look out for some cool cameos and Hamilton fan service, too. In my opinion, that was all handled very well.

Look, I don't really have much else to say except I'm super excited for more people to see this film when it officially comes out. The friend I saw the movie with tonight also brought along two of her friends, who had all seen the musical or at least heard the soundtrack beforehand, and they were all jamming along to the music as it came on and all absolutely ADORED this film. To me, that's proof positive that regardless of whether or not you're familiar with the original source material, if you love musicals, you should absolutely see this film. John M. Chu's direction is absolutely eye-popping, the cinematography and choreography feel like just the right combination of musical and movie staging for an adaptation like this, the performances and soundtrack are phenomenal, the dialogue is perfectly organic, it's everything that I wanted out of this movie when I walked in and perhaps even a little bit more. The only minor flaws I had with it are some editing choices with inconsistencies in when they decide to put up subtitles (you guys know that's a personal pet peeve of mine) and a line between fantasy and reality that isn't always completely clear, but honestly, by the end of the film, these all became such minor nitpicks that I don't really care. I adored In The Heights with all my heart, and I'm so happy that I got to share an experience in a theater with people seeing this film early. This was incredible. Get excited for when this film comes out on June 11, guys!

Letter Grade: A+