I think In The Heights is the movie America has been waiting for for years, not just since the pandemic. I know I was. It is mind-blowingly good.
I started crying somewhere in the first ten minutes and was still aniffling up at the end. I’m not sure why. The movie was anything but said; it was an overwhelming and uplifting experience.
I think I cried because I was so happy and relieved just to see it.
The movie is set in hot and humid summertime in Washington Heights, a Manhatten neighbors of various Latino cultures and people before, during, and after a draining three-day blackout.
Washington Heights is the uppermost neighborhood of Manhattan Island. In the 1970s, Jews and other ethnicities left the neighborhood as Black and Latino populations increased. Today, Washington Heights is the most prominent Dominican community in the United States.
The neighborhood is beginning to gentrify, something the movie touches upon. The Dominican population which gave the neighborhood so much color and character is being pushed out.
“The streets were made of music,” says the movie’s heart and soul Usnavi del Vega, played by red-hot leading man Anthony Ramos, who echoes Lin Manuel-Miranda’s role in Hamilton, in which he also performed.
This movie is also made of music, all 145 wonderful minutes of it.
For all its length, I was sad and surprised when it ended. It seemed to just dance right by. In some movies, the music halts the action. In this movie, the music is the action.
Ramos was overwhelmingly and convincingly nice. And Miranda wasn’t trying to upset anybody.
Even the bad guys were good guys. This is a very warm movie, great for kids (but it is long for very young kids.)
This is a movie about good people, immigrants, mostly from Puerto Richo, and the Dominican, as locals and baseball players call it.
As good musicals do, the bustling but gritty Washington Heights has been sanitized and romanticized – no cops, no crimes, little grime – but Miranda and director Jon M. Chu understood the country they were making the movie for.
We’ve had enough of politics, enough of rage, enough of whining and arguing, enough of a political system that is broken and increasingly hopeless.
In The Heights wasn’t made for the Chinese audience, like most big Hollywood productions. It was made for an America exhausted and battered by a pandemic but also by an increasingly dysfunctional political system that doesn’t seem to do anything but a lie, posture, and fight.
I’m running out of superlatives to talk about this movie.
Everything – the script, the lyrics, the dancing, the lighting, the set designs and clothes designs, and the wondrous special effects surprises are as great as they can possibly be and better.
The feeling of a powerful community is woven all through this movie.
Washington Heights was the perfect setting for a super movie that draws heavily on the dazzling, spirited, often defiant rhythms that fuse rap, hip-hop, and almost every Latin sound there is.
That is great fun to watch.
The movie, in fact, dares you to watch it; it has a “show me how!” and “how did they do that!” vein that runs throughout and is surprising and delightful.
This is not a film that calls for a lot of explanation, so I won’t waste your time explaining what is instantly obvious.
Miranda shows us for good, I think, that the big screen is not an Ipad or an Iphone. This, of all movies, needs to be seen in a theater.
This is what we have been missing, and this is what we sorely need.
The film is a truly brilliant, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime film achievement. I’ve never seen anything like it in a movie theater, and I’m already worried I won’t get to see anything like it again.
Just go see it, or stream it on HBO.
Some of us have 75 inch flatscreens in our living rooms—plenty big enough screens to avoid the discomfort and expense of a public theater. Glad you liked the film, however you saw it!
It’s up to you Mike, watch it wherever you want…a 75 inch screen would be way too small for me to watch this movie…but I don’t tell other people what to do..It was worth every penny to me at twice the price…I hope they make a billion dollars.
Thanks, I’ll be sure to catch it.
?
What do you mean by “made for a Chinese audience”?
Just what I said, most movies that are big are aimed at the Chinese market, which is not the biggest movie market in the world..
But if it’s not the biggest market, why aim at it?
Uh…because it is the biggest market
Jon I miss seeing movies and can understand why your eyes filled with tears even without having yet seen the movie. There is something transportive about watching movies on the big screen to begin with. The best take the audience to deep places emotionally in a quietly communal way that I’ve missed. I am looking forward to seeing it, perhaps very soon. I wasn’t aware of the relationship between the Chinese government and moviemakers, Joe, and so hadn’t a clue what Jon meant when he wrote that his movie “wasn’t made for the Chinese audience.” Was it a typo? Living in Hawaii where so many people are of Chinese ancestry I really wracked my head trying to figure out that sentence. Why is he singling out Chinese Americans? Doesn’t seem very friendly. That would be an odd think for Jon to write given his values. If not Chinese Americans, does he mean people who are Chinese citizens? Why wouldn’t they enjoy the film? And so, I am so glad you were brave enough to ask, Joe. You are my favorite kind of lifelong learner. This article from the Guardian helped me to understand the issue more fully. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/aug/05/china-hollywood-films-damaging-impact-report
E malama pono (take good care) to you both.
WHO KNEW?
How big is Chinese movie market?
With box office revenue of RMB44 billion in 2015, China is the fastest growing film market in the world. By 2020, China’s box office is expected to reach RMB200 billion and will exceed North America as the world’s largest market in box office revenue and audience numbers. BLOOMBERG
Great show, and really this movie needs to be seen in a theater, no matter how big your screen at home is.
And it’s terrific to be back in the theater again!
Thanks for plugging it!
-Margie
I couldn’t agree with you more. When my daughter and granddaughter wanted us to watch the movie, I said we had to see it on the big screen. We have all been vaccinated, so we donned our masks and went to the theatre. My daughter was uncomfortable at first, but she admitted it was worth it. We all loved every minute, and it could have gone on much longer. I will watch it again. There are parts I wish I could slow down and savor more slowly. Everything about it was terrific. I sure hope it gets the Oscar recognition it deserves.
I’m going to see it next weekend at a movie theater!! The mask mandate in my state will be lifted this week, and I’m fully vaccinated, so I’m going to the theater!! Yay!!
great movie, disappointing box office for opening night…
I’ll let you know the reception in Modesto, Ca.
When we lived in Washington Heights one day came across a parade of people carrying signs about voting for president. It was very confusing until I got that it was for president of the Dominican Republic, and arrangements were made that people could vote for their president back home here in NYC.
Totally agree! This was our first trip out to the movie theater in ages and what a joy it was! Not surprisingly, we were two of only 7 people in the theater. ( we live deep in a very ‘red’ part of Indiana). I hope folks around the country treat themselves to this marvelous experience.