A piragua hits the spot on a hot day, but it’s not the most substantial of delights: After a while, it melts away into syrupy slush, which could also be said of the filmed version of
In the Heights. Transferring any story from stage to screen is a big lift, and the addition of diegetic music the dreaded-by-some “people randomly bursting into song” effect raises the degree of difficulty even higher. Probably no one who reflexively dislikes musicals will overcome that resistance as a result of watching
In the Heights, and theater fans who have seen the show on stage may be annoyed by the changes the filmmakers have made to the narrative structure, especially when those changes ladle extra sentiment onto an already less-than-edgy story. Still, this movie succeeds at the hardest task a movie musical needs to pull off: the musical numbers, with few exceptions, soar in the way an in-story song has to soar to convince us that, given this situation and these characters, “random
In the Heights Fumbles Some of Its Changes, but It Still Soars Slate 10 hrs ago
In the Heights feels as welcome and refreshing in the summer of 2021 as a
piragua, the shaved-ice-and-syrup treat that makes an appearance early in the film’s big opening number, hawked from a rolling cart with an infernally catchy jingle. In Jon M. Chu’s new film adaptation of the Tony-winning 2008 musical, the small role of the
piragüero the guy pushing the cart is played by Lin-Manuel Miranda, star of the original Broadway show as well as its composer and lyricist, and now, thanks to