D'où l'on vient

It's a good one time watch movie, mainly for its Music and dance through some great cinematography done with greats sets. The story is vague so you'll be disappointed, if you're mainly focused on the plot. Or else, you'll pretty much be entertained with some good music and dance shown.

It 's a big, sprawling movie about a Hispanic block in upper Manhattan's Washington Heights, and how each of them has his or her own dream, most of which are some variation of getting out of Washington Heights. It's a steady, dependable sort of multi-generational plot that was paying Fanny Hurst's bills more than a century ago, the stories and dreams seem well told, even if there are too may of them to keep in your head when we return to a particular character. It's also a musical, the one that Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote and directed and starred in to make his bones. John Chu has taken over the direction and Anthony Ramos the role.

There's some handsome, if not original choreography in this movie, bits lifted from WEST SIDE STORY and ROYAL WEDDING. It follows the tendency to make a big production number out of every dance. Until the next to last one, I experienced the despair I so often feel looking at modern movie musicals, convinced they've forgotten how to move the camera, but instead cut, cut, cut. The last dance, however, showed they hadn't. They just would rather do a zip cut than plan out the complex movements.

Sigh. Still, the songs were surprisingly strong, particularly "Paciencia Y Fe", sung by Olga Merediz. It's a skilled and enthusiastic cast, and it makes me hope that Hollywood will go back to making musicals, that are more than Broadway musicals filmed in front of a proscenium arch.

Just way too long and should have been 30-40 minutes less. First couple of numbers and you think, this is pretty cool, but it soon gets very repetitive and the 'follow your dreams' message which is forced down your throat the whole time gets very tiresome. Good casting, dancing and a couple of numbers but too much of it overall. Can imagine this being good on the stage, perhaps it should have stayed there.

I really enjoyed "In the Heights" overall as a movie and musical. The best aspects were the overall story it told and some of musical dance numbers, e.g. The pool scene. The music itself was not at the same level as Hamilton, but it was still good. The characters were mostly very good with the best performed by Melissa Barrera and Olga Merediz. Anthony Ramos also does a very good job, but some aspects of the writing for his character were off. Also, some aspects of the side stories were too contrived and didn't add anything to the overall movie. But in the end these things mattered less and the movie pulls all of the important pieces together to still tell a great story. Congrats to all those who made this great film!

This movie is the feel-good summer hit we all have needed for the past year. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll be transported to Washington Heights. Every facet of this movie is executed perfectly. The acting is amazing. The songs are amazing. Unlike most movie musicals, this movie isn't trying to emulate Broadway. It very much uses filmic language to tell a unique story through a unique style. Go see it on the biggest screen you can, you won't regret it.