I knew very little about "In the Heights" before I watched it, just that it was an adaptation of the musical that Lin Manuel Miranda created before "Hamilton." I didn't know any of the music or songs. I didn't know the story, though I suspected it was a modern update on "West Side Story" due to the New York setting. And I didn't know the main actors, aside from Anthony Ramos as the lead, and only because he'd been in "Hamilton." Lin Manuel Miranda, Jimmy Smits, Stephanie Beatriz, Christopher Jackson and Dascha Polanco appear in smaller parts - really nothing significant enough to write home about. So, with no big stars, no memorable songs, no interesting story, and a long running time, is it any wonder that not many are showing up to see "In the Heights"?
The musical is built around two eventful summer days in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. Usnavi de la Vega (Ramos) is our narrator and guide, a young bodega owner looking to get out of the Heights, maybe to the Dominican Republic where his parents were from. His love interest is Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), a hairdresser who wants to be a fashion designer, but is thwarted in her attempts to move up in the world. We also follow a second couple, cab dispatcher Benny (Corey Hawkins), and his boss's daughter Nina (Leslie Grace), who has just returned to the Heights after a discouraging first year at Stanford University. Nina's father Kevin (Smits) has given up a lot to send her to school, but Nina is buckling under the pressure. As the day rolls along, someone wins the lottery, someone dies, there's a blackout, and we have many, many rousing song and dance numbers.
Washington Heights is largely populated by Dominican, Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban immigrants. There are frequent lines of dialogue and lyrics in untranslated Spanish. The show also finds ways to feature different cultural standards like food, clothing, and of course the music. While on the one hand this is wonderful to see, and the efforts toward more diversity are appreciated (as imperfect as the Twitterati have made clear that it is), on the other hand this is also another hurdle for general audiences to clear. I was surprised at the lack of hand-holding, and the multiple ways in which the adaptation makes it difficult for audiences to engage with the material. Director John Chu organizes spectacle that is very rousing, but unmoving. I suspect it's because the main characters often feel like they're getting crowded out of the frame, and it's only very late in the film that we get a number with really novel staging. If the point was to make the viewer feel like they were hanging out in Washington Heights for a few hours, they succeeded, but the immersiveness sometimes feels counterproductive to the dramatic thrust of the film.
After the big opening title number, "In the Heights," there is a surprising lack of momentum and conflict in the story. Usnavi, Vanessa, Nina, and Benny all have problems that are very internal, and none of the performances are particularly noteworthy. We watch them go about their lives, chasing their dreams and circling each other romantically. Mostly what comes across, however, is that they're all unhappy and never shut up about it. Everyone also constantly feels like they're getting short shrift, maybe because the film is trying to do too much. Gentrification, social justice, and poverty issues are all dutifully namechecked, but the show doesn't actually deal with any of this in a meaningful way. It's more successful at getting across the experience of being a first or second generation immigrant, which is great, but which I've also seen done better in other musicals.
If there's one thing that I feel like "In the Heights" is missing, it's a sense of fun. The best scenes in the movie are of Lin Manuel Miranda's shaved ice piragua seller waging war against a Mr. Softee truck, because there's some real humor and targeted tension there. The rest of the movie feels like homework. I didn't come out humming any of the songs. None of the characters left much of an impression. I didn't care if the couples got together, and if Usnavi ever went back to the Dominican Republic. I don't go to musicals for escapism, but I do expect to be entertained. And "In the Heights" is a lot less entertaining than I hoped it would be.
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