Having somehow managed to be completely ignorant of the Broadway musical that this big screen adaptation of In the Heights is based on, I went in fearful of this film being my first exposure to it. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s celebrated breakthrough musical, before he went on to create That Other One, is adapted by director Jon M. Chu, of Crazy Rich Asians fame, and indeed, this film shares the colorful palette and annoying herky-jerky editing rhythms of Chu’s previous film, amped up here because this is a musical, after all. In spite of pandering to the music video age, the film and (let’s give credit where credit is due) the material overcomes the currently fashionable tendency for reaction shots and body part close-ups to tell its universal story of neighborhood community identity with identifiable characters and assimilation tropes; part of tbe pleasure of this story is in figuring out how it could apply to just about any ethnic “ghetto.” It’s a Fiddler on the Roof, updated. The songs are appropriately infectious and the lyrics, of course, deft. Anthony Ramos stands out as the lead here, but the entire cast brings its A-game.
It’s nice to be back at the movies, by the way, and the seat-rattling audio and crisp visuals of Dolby Atmos is an important reminder of why it’s imperative to fight for the survival of big movie exhibition.
