BEFORE: It feels like this one's been a long time coming - last summer I worked at an AMC Theater in Manhattan, and this film hit the screens a few weeks after I started working as an usher, so even though it played fewer times per day than most features (because of the longer running time, nearly two and a half hours) it still feels like there were hundreds of times that I had to wait for the post-credits scene on this one, before I could sweep up that theater. Business was great for a while, a lot of people came out to see this one (my wife, huge Lin-Manuel fan but she stayed home and watched it on HBO Max, which was a new thing at the time) and the musical theater fans also tended to be very neat and clean, so usually not too much trouble to clean the theater. But man, I know every little beat in that closing sequence with the cameo of Christopher Jackson as the Mr. Softee ice cream truck man.
Stephanie Beatriz and Olga Merediz carry over from "Encanto" as Hispanic half-week continues, and we get ready for Hot Latin Summer. The temperature in NYC hit 80 yesterday, and it's still only April. We're still trying to get our windows fixed so we can open them, if it doesn't happen soon, we'll miss all the nice weather and go straight to A.C. weather, and the need to open the windows for fresh air will be gone...
THE PLOT: A film version of the Broadway musical in which Usnavi, a sympathetic New York bodega owner, saves every penny every day as he imagines and sings about a better life.
AFTER: Again, I'm way out of my comfort zone with this one, I tend to stay only within Queens, where I live, and Manhattan, where I work. But Washington Heights is UPPER Manhattan, like above 133rd St., and I rarely even go to the Upper East Side, for that matter I hardly ever go above 42nd St. There's a whole world in every NYC neighborhood, I get that. But if I'm looking to have fun, I'll go to Coney Island. If we really want to explore a city, we'll go on vacation, drive across a few southern states or our last excursion was a "casino crawl" in Vegas. What does Washington Heights have to offer me, besides bodegas and crowded streets? OK, so there are probably some great restaurants up there, I love Dominican food and Cuban sandwiches are great - but I can get great Dominican food in Sunset Park or even Bushwick, why spend subway fare?
My wife is the expert on all things Lin-Manuel, even the stage musical production of "In the Heights", so this morning before I left for work we had a brief discussion about the obvious (to her) changes made to adapt the musical for the movie screen. For starters, I'm guessing that several things needed to be cut, because the musical is probably a three- or four-hour production, and the movie's just two and a half. Little things, maybe, like Nina's mother got cut out completely, but I'm not noticing her absence, like her father's character is a bit more sympathetic as a widower. And she said that Abuela Claudia's song and departure takes place earlier in the stage musical - no spoilers here in case you're unfamiliar with the storyline, but her song is very connected to a major turning point in the plot, you just have to wait longer for it in the movie.
Every character in this neighborhood has a little dream, a sueñito, and they range from opening a new nail salon to getting a job in the fashion industry, to Usnavi saving up to buy his father's old bar back in the Dominican Republic, so he can fix it up, leave NYC and work in his homeland. To do this he has to maintain his family's bodega and keep turning a profit, which would be very difficult to do if there should be some kind of neighborhood emergency, such as a summer blackout. (The film totally telegraphs this happening, it's always "two days until blackout", so I'm not really spoiling anything here...)
Meanwhile, Nina returns to the neighborhood after dropping out of Stanford, she didn't feel like she fit in, she encountered racist classmates, plus she found out that her father sold half of his taxi business just to pay for her tuition, and she doesn't want to burden him any more. This is very similar to the family dynamics in "Encanto", where Maribel couldn't figure out her place in the world, due to the lack of an obvious "gift", and her resulting conflict with her grandmother. I'll confess that this hit home for me, last night after watching "In the Heights" I had that dream where I was back in NYU Film School, moving back into the dorm and then realizing that I had no ideas for making movies, and immediately started questioning whether I belonged there.
The other characters are Benny, who works at the cab company owned by Nina's father, Sonny, who is Usnavi's cousin and works at the bodega, and Vanessa, who Usnavi wants to date but can't seem to get the courage to ask out. In the background of everything are references to the DACA immigration policy, for the "dreamers", and this colors everything like Sonny's inability to leave for the D.R. with Usnavi, because he's undocumented, and Nina's eventual desire to go back to college, so she can work to change society and make things better in the U.S. for immigrants.
Also in the background is the fact that Usnavi's bodega apparently sold a winning lottery ticket, and there's much speculation around the neighborhood about who bought it - there's a song in which all the main characters talk about how they'd spend that money, if they had it. Which makes some sense if EVERY character also bought a ticket, but a little less sense if they didn't. Just saying. But the winning ticket-holder doesn't come forward, and I really was beginning to think that the director just forgot to get back to this. Silly me, but this is one of those things that got moved in the adaptation - in the stage musical, the next song reveals the winner, but here, you've just got to be patient.
I've got a bit of a NITPICK POINT here, I was always led to believe that the store that sells a winning lottery ticket is entitled to a bonus, I guess this encourages retailers to sell more tickets, and also keep things honest. So I wondered why Usnavi and Sonny weren't talking about how much their bodega might get as a bonus for selling a winning ticket. Well, it turns out that there's no bonus in New York state for retailers, so that's that. BUT, I was also led to believe that a store owner is banned from turning in a winning ticket, and that's to help prevent dishonestly, like a customer could ask for assistance from a retailer to determine if they have a winning ticket, and at that point the shop-owner could lie, say it's a losing ticket, and turn the ticket in themselves. But, I guess the director here maybe considered that, because of what ends up being done with the ticket.
Any other changes from the stage musical seem relatively minor, like having Usnavi and Vanessa argue after going to the club, instead of Benny and Nina. Benny and Nina seem to be the central couple of the stage musical, but here there's a little more focus overall on Usnavi and Vanessa. Benny and Nina get one spectacular dance number, however, where they appear to defy gravity and dance up the side of a building near the end. It kind of reminded me of the old "Batman" TV show in the 1960's, where they would show often Batman and Robin climbing ropes up a building, and a guest-star would talk to them from a window. Clearly they just turned the camera on its side for some really low-rent visual effects, and the background was fake perspective to complete the illusion. Now I wonder if "In the Heights" used the same trick, or if the visual FX were much more high-tech, green-screened or CGI or whatever.
The pool scene also stands out, with the overhead camera creating one of those big tributes to Esther Williams movies, also giant Busby Berkeley dance numbers from the 1930's. The other big dance scenes, like ones with large numbers of people in the streets, eh, I can take 'em or leave 'em, but the pool dance number and the side-of-the-building number are the big pay-offs.
I also find the name of the character "Graffiti Pete" to be hilarious, though it was probably unintentionally so. It's an example of an "unfinished rhyme", because it would be so easy to call the character "Graffiti Petey", which would rhyme. The comedy slasher film "Club Dread" featured another example of this, because in that film there's a local legend about a killer who uses a machete and his last name is Colletti, however the nickname for the character turns out to be "Machete Phil", and not the very obvious rhyming nickname.
Also starring Anthony Ramos (last heard in "Trolls 2: World Tour"), Melissa Barrera, Leslie Grace, Corey Hawkins (last seen in "6 Underground"), Jimmy Smits (last seen in "The Jane Austen Book Club"), Gregory Diaz IV (last seen in "Carrie Pilby"), Daphne Rubin-Vega (last seen in "Jack Goes Boating"), Dascha Polanco (last seen in "The Irishman"), Noah Catala, Lin-Manuel Miranda (last not-seen in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"), Mateo Gomez (last seen in "Music of the Heart"), Marc Anthony (last seen in "Man on Fire"), Patrick Page (last seen in "I Am Michael"), Olivia Perez, Analia Gomez, Dean Scott Vazquez, Mason Vazquez, Delila Ramos, Valentina, Christopher Jackson (last heard in "Moana"), Susan Pourfar (last seen in "Irrational Man"), Ilia Jessica Castro, Ariana Greenblatt (last heard in "Scoob!"), Seth Stewart, the voice of The Kid Mero and cameos from Maria Hinojosa, Luis A. Miranda Jr., Dr. Luz Towns-Miranda.
RATING: 6 out of 10 taxi cabs (and maxi pads)
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