In 1976, someone told Sylvester Stallone that no one was gonna make a movie for him. If he wanted to be on the big screen, he would have to write that movie himself. One Rocky Balboa later, and a self-made star was created. It’s pretty clear Lin Manuel Miranda got the same Balboa type speech. In the Heights is a glorious romp through Miranda’s Washington Heights, a special melting pot of all sorts of Latinx communities delivering culture, music, and simply the joy of living to everyone that is lucky to set foot anywhere near the community.
We get a tour through Washington Heights from Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), a local bodega owner in the neighborhood. He sings of his suenito: his little dream to save enough money to go back and fix up his dad’s bar in the Caribbean. Along the way, we meet the various people in his life: his younger business partner/cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV), his best friend Benny (Corey Hawkins), Benny’s crush/Usnavi’s little sister Nina (Ariana Greenblatt), Nina’s father Kevin (Jimmy Smits), Usnavi’s Abuela (Oldga Merediz), and his crush Vanessa (Melissa Barrera). These people all live in the Heights, possessing their own suenitos they hope to see come true, hopefully before the title card’s blackout, which happens in a few days.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been so thoroughly transported to a place in the real world. But that’s the power of John M. Chu’s direction. Smartly shooting on location in the Upper West Side, Chu really makes you feel what Usnavi’s life is like hanging out in the Heights. Like most small towns, Chu really makes you feel like these people are a community: everyone knows everyone, and is rooting for everyone to succeed at their (mostly not so secret) suenitos. Through each amazingly choreographed dance number, and there are more than a few, Chu establishes the daily rhythms of the streets, gives us character and location introductions, and establishes the feelings of excitement and vitality oozing out of the neighborhood. That youthful energy, driven home by Miranda’s hip-hop/latinx soundtrack and Chu’s dance numbers, just makes you feel alive and brimming with anticipation because of what Washington Heights community has given to you. Even during a blackout on the hottest day of the year, Daniela (Daphne Rubin-Vega) is here to lift everyone up and remind everyone “Since when are Latino’s scared of a little heat?”, culminating in a multicultural dance number that’s so wonderful because it could only happen in this location at this specific time and produce this level of magic.
Helping Chu and Miranda out are an intimidating cast of musical and acting performers, capable of carrying a tune and a scene at the same time. Anthony Ramos is the rock solid foundation of In the Heights. He uses his emotional availability to walk us through the days of his life, which run the gamut of emotions he conveys with total enthusiasm and sincerity, sometimes while mixing song and talk in the same scene. The supporting cast is as game as Ramos: Gregory Diaz IV stood out the most as Sonny, the younger shop owner. He gets the more immigration heavy storyline while still being a great supporting humor machine. Ariana Greenblatt nearly floored me with her big number about a bright child carrying the weight of a neighborhood’s worth of suenitos on her shoulders on top of her own. On the other side, she and Corey Hawkins dazzle in the movie’s best number involving dancing up and down a high rise. And Melissa Barrera makes every dude hot and bothered with her brilliant salsas and gorgeous but vulnerable eyes. Olga Merediz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, and Jimmy Smits give the movie a nice stoic elder perspective in Washington Heights, professional and solid. And Dascha Polanko and Stephanie Beatriz, though too underused, make do with being the funniest people in each room they’re in.
The second the stunning “In The Heights” opening number ends, you are transplanted to a place that makes you understand how someone as talented as Lin Manuel Miranda came from there. Every day is a celebration of living: a party you never want to end. No matter what gentrification and immigration might do, that optimistic, exuberant spirit in Washington Heights can’t ever be extinguished. It has transferred its essence into the people from there, spreading that essence to more far away places, who will be all the better for it, coming up with suenitos of their own.