Typically, I do not consider myself a huge musical fan, I have nothing against them, I would just rather watch something else. So I was not necessarily looking forward to the new Lin Manuel Miranda movie, In the Heights, but I knew I was going to watch it. Oddly enough, the theatrical production of In the Heights preceded Hamilton, but Hamilton was the one that truly put Miranda into the spotlight. I have never watched Hamilton or listened to the soundtrack, but I had heard endlessly great things about it, and from Miranda’s reputation, it left me with extremely high expectations for this film, and it is fair to say that In the Heights held up to its expectations.
In the Heights is the story of a Dominican immigrant, Usnavi, who is running a bodega in Washington Heights, but there are a couple problems he is facing and the larger community as well. One is the exponentially rising cost of rent, not only for his store, but also his place of living, this problem also affects those in the community around them, and many of the people are fleeing to a cheaper place to live. There is also the problem of whether he should buy his Father's old place in the Dominican Republic and make it his home. This has always been his dream, but it is still a tough decision for him none the less. Then a love interest, Vanessa, also enters the picture making the decision of whether to stay that much harder. She has a dream of being a fashion designer and wants to make it in New York. There are also a few side stories along the way about a family trying to help their daughter make it out and be successful, but not being able to afford it, and her love interest trying to make the relationship work even though she is going to college across the country at Stanford.
The movie does an excellent job of examining the Dominican Culture in an artistic and entertaining way. Movies have been becoming more culturally aware, and stories about a wide variety of people are becoming more common place. For example, there is The Farewell, which examined Chinese family dynamics, there is Moonlight, which investigated the experience of being a gay black man, and there is Parasite which dissected class dynamics in Korea. All these movies were incredibly successful and renown, largely this seems due to a larger embrace of foreign cultures and the stories they have to tell. Thus, creating new and compelling stories previously unseen or thought about. So it was very interesting to see the Dominican pocket in Washington heights and the struggles that they are going through, even though it was more tragic than light hearted, but tougher stories do make for great movies, just like all of the previously mentioned above. It was interesting to see the family dynamic that all the Dominicans had in the area even though they were not biologically family, they looked after each other like they were.
This movie although vastly different in tone and execution from Vampires vs. the Bronx, had a remarkably similar message. Both movies focused on a Dominican presence in New York, and they both focused on the migration of the Dominican people out of the city due to the gentrification occurring. Personally, I prefer the version of the story where the relators are vampires, but I do not think vampires would have fit very well into In the Heights. Both films also focused in on the familiar culture that occurs among the Dominicans in this area. In the Heights raised an interesting question for Usnavi, as to what his dream really is, and is it going to be worth it to invest in his dream. Ultimately, he decides that New York is his home now and instead of a bodega, he is going to help Vanessa chase her dream of being big in the fashion world. This choice was a huge one because multiple times in the movie, he mentions that the best time in his life was when he lived in the Dominican when he was eight years old, and in this area many of the Dominicans talked about their time back home so glowingly, so turning down the chance of returning was a massive deal.
It does seem like making a musical, either in movie format or as a play, is one of the hardest forms of telling a story. This is mainly due to the need to integrate song and dance as a plot device, so not only does the music and dance have to be good, but it has to bear a brunt of the story telling, and it might just be my lack of musical creativity, but to me it seems much harder to do this than to just try and tell a story without all the song and dance. It also makes it more difficult for casting, because not only do the people in the movie have to be great actors, they also must have incredible vocal talent and be able to go through the choreography. So this genre deserves a ton of respect for all of the pieces they have to make work together to make something incredible.
This film also took a nice dig at the current collegiate system and the horrible position it puts families into financially. Tuition is continually getting higher, and higher education is becoming more of a requirement for all salaried positions, and even for those lesser positions. In the film, Nina returns from her first year at Stanford, and she has basically used all of her family’s savings for that one year, but her dad wants to give her a chance to get out of the cycle of poverty and just barely getting by, and to become the success she is capable of being. Whereas Nina does not want her father to go broke, so she tries to stay in New York and work locally instead. Her father does not allow for this to happen, and he sells his business so his daughter can go and pursue her education. Student loans have become a massive problem for many college graduates in recent years due to the price gouging, it takes these people many years to pay off their college debt, and not all the jobs that people get with their degrees are high paying, so it is a burden that lasts on a person much longer than the brief four years someone is in college.
Overall, this was a good movie, the music was very catchy, and the story was compelling. All the elements worked well together from the struggle to get by, to the various love stories they told, it all worked together. Sadly, I do not really have much of a musical knowledge to compare it to, but I can say that it was definitely better than The Greatest Showman, but not as good as A Star is Born, which is not exactly a musical, but a music adjacent movie that is excellent. It is culturally rich and exploratory into this group of people in New York, and I heard that if you are familiar with the area in which they filmed, it also adds a layer of enjoyment to watching. I give this movie an 87. I think I am going to shift my rating system and do it out of 5 stars soon, I feel like I am not giving movies the accurate grade for how I feel about them, and it will be easier to convey how I feel if I limit my options down from 100 to 5.
New Rankings:
In the Heights: 87
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: 85
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: 85
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