In the Heights – 2021 – PG13
Finally!! In the Heights hit the theaters and won our hearts! For a a year and a half our neighborhoods represented doom and gloom, glaring danger zones, In the Pits! The summer opening of Lin Manuel Miranda’s new film “In the Heights” matches perfectly the summer reopening of American society. Heck, while I didn’t dance up and down the aisles of Trader Joe’s this week, I didn’t have to stand on a socially distanced X waiting to check out. While I didn’t somersault into the community pool, I didn’t have to wear a mask on the pool deck. Yep, all good, a happy dance in my head. Community coming alive!
Meet New York’s Washington Heights, a vibrant, diverse, multigenerational community fighting to stay alive. Count up the international flags during the “Carnaval del Barrio” number and you will appreciate the cultural mix of this Upper Manhatten neighborhood. Members of the Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican and Cuban communities take turns waving their flags during this show-stopping, dazzling, eye-candy number. Facing inevitable gentrification, the characters hang tenaciously to their sueñitos, little dreams—but face the vexing, perennial question, do I stay or do I go? For some, like boisterous beauty shop owner Daniela facing steep rent increases, moving to the Bronx is the answer. While for others, like our Heights bodega hero, Usnavi, does the dream lay in his Dominican island homeland or on Manhatten Island? Nina, the rising pride of the neighborhood, comes home—and intends to stay there—escaping an unkind, unwelcoming year at Stanford. Then challenged by the fate of undocumented, lovable dreamer Sonny, Nina weighs returning for that equally vexing “greater good” sacrifice. Abuela Claudio, matriarch and surrogate grandmother to many, must choose life or life hereafter. Vanessa, aspiring fashion designer, can’t wait to race away only to fall….in love….and well, that’s really what this movie is about: friendship, loyalty, gratitude…old world values in new world realities. Merengue and salsa verve infused into hip hop, rambunctious razzle dazzle. There are undercurrents of racism, politics and poverty but there are no villains here. In the Heights skirts around those potentially and realistically crushing themes. We get relationship over rebellion, bonding over breaking. Activists will lament missed opportunity. There is probably some truth there but for sheer movie magic and the 143 minute run time, yep, all good.
For classic musical film buffs, old world cinema school infiltrated this fabulous flick. Nina and Benny’s spectacular tenement wall waltz stands on the shoulders of Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding (1951) or Donald O’Connor’s Make ‘em Laugh number in the best musical ever made, Singin’ in the Rain (1952). In the “96,000” and it’s 600 extras swimming pool number, check out Esther Williams and any of her MGM 1950’s elaborately staged synchronized swimming movie scenes. They do make ’em like this any more! Enjoy!
