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It’s here! Jubilant, unapologetically massive, and bursting with a cozy, melancholic sense of communal belonging, “In The Heights” is the biggest-screen-you-can-find Hollywood event that we the movie lovers have been craving since the early days of the pandemic, when the health crisis cut off one of our most cherished public lifelines. A dazzling New York movie that honors the diverse Latinx communities of Upper Manhattan like its boisterous source—the multi-award-winning stage musical that put Lin-Manuel Miranda on the showbiz map before his fame exploded with “ Hamilton ”—this exuberant screen adaptation (with at least one delightful “Hamilton” Easter Egg) is ready to welcome you back into your neighborhood cinema with open arms, daring to light up that dark room in ways much bigger and brighter than you might remember. 

Yes, it’s simply an overwhelming experience, to float weightlessly during the nearly 145-minute running time of “In The Heights.” And don’t let that number scare you off—the whole thing passes breezily like a New York minute, dancing its way through one typically humid and sweaty summer of the urban island’s Washington Heights, pitched on the brink of a soul-killing blackout. Sitting on a picturesque tropical beach and telling his tale to a company of adorable kids early on in the film (a smart, recurring narrative anchor that resolves to a satisfying conclusion), “The streets were made of music,” says the movie’s heart and soul Usnavi de la Vega. Here, he is played by your new favorite leading man Anthony Ramos , who revives Miranda’s Broadway role in an irresistibly likable, instantly star-making performance after holding a number of memorable parts in the likes of “ Monsters and Men ,” “ White Girl ,” and “A Star is Born.” 

It’s shrewd of the chief creative helmers, a trio consisting of virtuoso director Jon M. Chu , deft screenwriter Quiara Alegría Hudes (who also wrote the book for the stage musical and braids a number of well-constructed changes into this version) and of course, peerless creator Lin-Manuel Miranda (charismatically playing a street vendor selling icy fruity piraguas here), to emphasize the melodic nature of the barrio right at the start. This might sound like an obvious proposition for a production about a locale’s complex and colorful rhythms that fuse rap, hip-hop, and various Latin sounds like salsa and merengue, with traditional musical theater. But it’s also one that grants Chu with the spot-on set-up to declare, “Let me show you how!” and to flaunt the visual proof throughout with disarming disposition and jaw-dropping craft that coddles tight apartments, sunbaked alleys, scenic overlooks, fire-escapes and one gigantic public pool. Indeed, as a director who proved his kinetic muscles with the sophisticated romantic comedy “ Crazy Rich Asians ” (which is as close to a sense of choreographed musicality as a non-musical film can get) and is no stranger to dance in film, mostly thanks to his entries in the “Step Up” franchise, Chu might just convert even the fiercest skeptics of musicals that question the plausibility of a bunch of people launching into a random song-and-dance number.

To take it a step further, Chu grandly demonstrates that both the tenderness and the ideological vastness of “In The Heights” were always meant for the big screen in a way, rather than the confines of a physical stage. Your mind surrenders to Chu’s logic and vision entirely, believing that it does make all the sense in the world when Usnavi, a lovable immigrant orphan from the Dominican Republic with immediate dreams of returning to the island he considers a paradise, spins a manhole cover like a turntable, snaps a gate latch into place in a tempo matched by a splashy hose, and reflectively watches from inside his bodega as his entire neighborhood sings and dances, greeting a brand-new day outside of his window. And this is only the opening number, a spirited introduction to an array of personalities that almost brought this Turkish immigrant critic (who called the geographically and culturally adjacent, similarly vibrant Hamilton Heights home for over a decade) to her feet, alongside the loud but calming swooshes of fire hydrants.

That same introduction familiarizes us with the concept of a sueñito , a little dream, that everyone with a major part in “In The Heights” dearly holds. For the bodega owner Usnavi, the dream is not only to return to the happy Dominican Republic of his childhood, but also, to finally ask the intimidating Vanessa out on a date. Played with such seductive verve by Melissa Barrera , the aspiring fashion designer Vanessa on the other hand dreams of leaving her dead-end beauty salon job working alongside the head-strong, mischievously gossipy ladies Daniela ( Daphne Rubin-Vega ), Carla ( Stephanie Beatriz ) and Cuca ( Dascha Polanco ), and moving downtown to pursue her passion career. There's also the smart college student Nina Rosario (an immensely powerful Leslie Grace ), who yearns to reinstate her identity as a Latina on the heels of her dispiriting year at the white-dominant Stanford. Her plans to drop out of college disappoint Kevin ( Jimmy Smits ), her sacrificing father with high expectations of her, and surprise Benny ( Corey Hawkins , impossibly charming), a strong-willed, energetic dispatcher working at Kevin’s limo company. (You guessed it: he and Nina are in love.) Also in the mix, with a markedly more significant part than in the musical, is Usnavi’s cousin Sonny ( Gregory Diaz IV , effortlessly loveable), the kind of undocumented Dreamer unwelcome in the Trumpian trenches of the country. (Fans of the original musical will be quick to identify the instance in which Trump’s name gets swapped with Tiger Woods. “When I wrote it, he was an avatar for the Monopoly man. Then when time moves on and he becomes the stain on American democracy, you change the lyric,” Miranda recently said to Variety .) 

These characters collectively paint a big, beautiful canvas that the Heights matriarch Abuela Claudia ( Olga Merediz , absolutely heartrending in a revival of her famed stage role) seems to have taken under her wings since forever. Foreshadowing one of the movie’s most affecting and inspired sequences involving wistful vintage subway cars and her past as a hardworking immigrant, "Paciencia y Fe" (patience and faith) Abuela optimistically says as she waves her newly bought lottery ticket in the air. We soon learn that investing in the lottery is a widely shared routine in her streets—once Usnavi is informed of a winning ticket sold at his deli, the musical’s earth-shattering centerpiece “96,000” arrives. We try to keep up as hundreds of extras covet the big bad $96K prize, a hardly life-saving sum, but enough to make a fresh, life-changing start. Shot in the Highbridge Pool, this miraculous number (dexterously choreographed by Christopher Scott like the rest) of synchronized swimming and harmonic dancing in the tradition of Busby Berkeley brings the entire cast together with gusto, confidently reminding the audience the kind of movie that they are watching—a big motion picture that absolutely refuses to scale down its emotional scope and visual splendor.

It’s thanks to that self-assured rejection to downsize on the outside and inside that the entirety of “In The Heights” works, both as an intimate ode to a tightknit community made up of individuals stuck in an in-between (a visceral state of being that will be deeply familiar to fellow immigrants), and a hard-hitting political statement that has something to say about all the rampant systemic injustices ingrained in a maddeningly white-normative society, from gentrification to casual racism. In unison, Chu’s direction, Miranda’s music and lyrics, and Hudes’ script amplify an idea voiced by Abuela—about asserting one’s dignity in small ways—and memorialize that notion of self-worth by seeing all the details that add up to it. Thankfully, it’s evident that this ambition is shared by the entire cast (all exceptional singers, dancers and performers), Alice Brooks ’ dreamy cinematography, Myron Kerstein ’s snappy editing as well as production designer Nelson Coates and costumer Mitchell Travers , with the duo highlighting the diverse shapes and forms of a unique slice of Manhattan with dizzying imagination.

Survey the proud faces that shout “HEY!” during “Carnaval del Barrio,” another one of the film’s buoyantly inviting songs; hum along, perhaps quietly weep, when silky fabrics spill out of buildings like tears as Vanessa aches for a better future; inspect the lively, alluring moves of the hair parlor ladies as they vibrate to “No Me Diga” and even take notice of Nina’s hair that quickly transforms from straight to beautifully unruly and curly, and you will be that much closer to grasping the kind of character “In The Heights” is out to seize inside a world many choose to deem invisible. A celebration of the idea of home, both self-made and born and carried in one’s soul, “We are here,” this movie affirms with cinematic majesty. What a magnificent sight to behold.

"In the Heights" will be available on HBO Max and in theaters starting June 10.

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to  RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

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Film Credits

In The Heights (2021)

Rated PG-13 for some language and suggestive references.

143 minutes

Anthony Ramos as Usnavi de la Vega

Melissa Barrera as Vanessa

Corey Hawkins as Benny

Leslie Grace as Nina Rosario

Olga Merediz as Abuela Claudia

Jimmy Smits as Kevin Rosario

Lin-Manuel Miranda as Piragüero

Daphne Rubin-Vega as Daniela

Stephanie Beatriz as Carla

Gregory Diaz IV as Sonny

Dascha Polanco as Cuca

Marc Anthony as Gapo

Writer (based on the musical stage play, book by)

• Quiara Alegría Hudes

Writer (based on the musical stage play, concept by)

• Lin-Manuel Miranda

Cinematographer

• Alice Brooks
• Myron Kerstein

Composer (songs)

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‘In the Heights’ Review: In Dreams Begin Responsibilities

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical comes to the screen as an exuberant and heartfelt party, directed by Jon M. Chu and starring Anthony Ramos.

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‘In the Heights’ | Anatomy of a Scene

Jon m. chu narrates a sequence from his film featuring anthony ramos..

Hey this is Jon M. Chu, the director of “In the Heights.” So this is the amazing Anthony Ramos, who plays Usnavi, the main storyteller in our movie. And he’s just said the streets are made of music. So we had to get all these people to go to the beat. We had this amazing clave beat that was playing and so all the background people had to go to that beat. [LAUGHING] [RECORD SQUEAK] That manhole cover doesn’t actually move. He just did that with his feet and our VFX team created an amazing spinning turntable there. This is a real bodega that we painted that mural on and aged all the ads on there for this. And then this is Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the show, who’s playing Piragua Guy. And you can see that piragua cart. He often knocked it over and would fall everywhere. And we’d all have to clean it up. It was not easy to maneuver. And here we are in the bodega. This is an amazing set that we built. We actually built the sidewalk outside the door so that we could make transitions. But here we really wanted to show off that map of the Dominican Republic, which is pieces of glass, bottles, it has keys all in there. And because of the set, we can take out the wall. So here we’re behind the wall actually here. All the food is real, so it was starting to smell over time. Actors would steal food and eat treats. By the end, I would say half those shelves were gone, because we’d just grab cookies. “Ooh!” “Abuela, my fridge broke. I got cafe, but no con leche.” “Ay, dios!” I love the set, because it just looks like a real place. It’s not too clean. There’s a messy beauty to it. Olga Meredith, who plays Abuela Claudia, is amazing. And we knew we would not recast her. She had to be in this movie. “—Abuela, she’s not really—” That moment with Anthony looking at the camera, not a lot of actors can really look at us and invite us in, like we’re one of his homies. But he had that amazing ability. “Well, you must take the A train even farther than Harlem—” We had iPad choreography with your fingers. Actually, it took a long time to figure out how would we do choreography with your fingers on your iPad. It’s more difficult than it seems. “—somebody bought Ortega’s, our neighbors started packing up and picking up. And ever since the rents went up. It’s gotten mad expensive, but we live with just enough.” “In the Heights—” The amount of time we had to put the blanket over the camera and not hurt the lens was tricky. I love this. We call this our community chorus, people who are dancers, and people you see throughout the movie. And I love seeing a neighborhood that works hard, takes care of their families, take care of each other, has dreams and otherwise. And that’s our opening for “In the Heights.”

By A.O. Scott

“ In the Heights ” begins with a man — Usnavi, played by Anthony Ramos — telling a story to a group of children. They are gathered on the patio of a bar on a palm-fringed, sun-kissed beach in the Dominican Republic. The bar is called El Sueñito, or the Little Dream, and the name is at once a clue, a spoiler and the key to the themes of this exuberant and heartfelt musical.

A dream can be a fantasy or a goal, an escape or an aspiration, a rejection of the way things are or an affirmation of what could be. “ In the Heights ,” adapted from Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Tony-winning Broadway show , embraces all of these meanings. After more than a year of desultory streaming, anemic entertainment and panicky doomscrolling, it’s a dream come true.

The director, Jon M. Chu ( “Crazy Rich Asians” ), draws on the anti-realist traditions of Hollywood song-and-dance spectacle to vault the characters (and the audience) into exalted realms of feeling and magic. Two lovers step off a tenement fire escape and pirouette up and down the walls of the building in a sweet and thrilling defiance of gravity. A public swimming pool turns into a Busby Berkeley kaleidoscope of kineticism and color. The wigs on a beauty salon shelf bounce along to the beat of a big production number.

At the same time, this multistranded, intergenerational story about family, community and upward mobility is rooted in the real-world soil of hard work and sacrifice. The modest dreams of Usnavi and his neighbors and friends are reflections of a very big dream — the American one, which the film celebrates without irony even as it takes note of certain contradictions.

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Lin-manuel miranda’s ‘in the heights’: film review.

The musical that put the 'Hamilton' creator on the map gets splashy big-screen treatment from director Jon M. Chu, with an ensemble cast led by Anthony Ramos and Corey Hawkins.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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The title song that opens In the Heights starts quietly with a tentative percussion beat as Anthony Ramos , in a star-making turn as narrator-protagonist Usnavi, eases into the intro’s freestyle rapping while the camera lovingly salutes the slice of Upper Manhattan that provides the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical with its pounding heart. Principal characters and their various domains within the close-knit Latino community are introduced on a warm summer’s day, crawling out of bed, spilling out of their brownstone apartment buildings, hopping on buses and heading to work.

A full ten minutes of this engaging scene-setting unfolds before the frame erupts into an ebullient production number with dancers of all ages, shapes and sizes fanning out all over an entire city block. It’s sheer joy to watch New York shake off its slumber, like an invigorating shower from an open fire hydrant. That alone should make this real-world musical fairy tale a summer crowd-pleaser.

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Release date: Jun 11, 2021

Cast : Anthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, Leslie Grace, Melissa Barrera, Olga Merediz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Gregory Diaz IV, Stephanie Beatriz, Dascha Polanco, Jimmy Smits, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Patrick Page, Noah Catala, Marc Anthony, Christopher Jackson Director : Jon M. Chu Screenwriter : Quiara Alegria Hudes, based on the musical stage play with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, book by Hudes, concept by Miranda

Even if Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu brings more life to those explosive numbers than to the soapy connective tissue that threads them together, the jubilant spirit of Warners’ big-screen adaptation — held back for a year by the pandemic — is contagious. This is a stirring valentine to a neighborhood and its people that, as the film tells it, stared gentrification in the eye and stood their ground, staying true to their cultural identity. Both the George Washington Bridge and the 168th Street subway station loom large as symbols of escape to the world beyond the barrio. But this is a paean to home — as a cocoon, a state of mind and a legacy for first-generation immigrants.

Miranda wrote the first draft of the show while he was at Wesleyan in the late ‘90s and went on to develop it with director Thomas Kail and playwright Quiara Alegria Hudes. It had a successful off- Broadway debut in 2007, transferring to Broadway the following year and winning four Tony Awards , including best musical and best original score for Miranda.

In that stage production, Miranda played Usnavi, a Washington Heights bodega owner named for the U.S. Navy ship first sighted by his Dominican parents on arrival in America. In the screen version, Miranda ages up into the happily hammy role of the Piragüero, who pushes his cart through the neighborhood selling fruit-flavored shaved-ice desserts. In a pleasing nod to the show’s history, the local driver for his corporatized competition, Mister Softee, is played by Christopher Jackson, an original alumnus of both In the Heights and Miranda’s subsequent monster hit, Hamilton .

The roots of that global blockbuster are readily apparent in this less sophisticated earlier work, in its themes of self-determination and the immigrant contribution, as well as some of its musical motifs. The melodies assigned to the principal women of In the Heights , in particular, often sound like test drives for the Schuyler Sisters’ catchier songs.

But if the material shows Miranda’s formidable creative talents at a more nascent stage, it nonetheless remains clear why the show was a breath of fresh air on predominantly white Broadway, where it ran for almost three years. Just the celebratory representation of striving working-class Latino characters — with one foot in cultural tradition and the other seeking traction in the American Dream — alone was refreshing. Likewise, the musical vernacular, a buoyant blend of Latin American pop, hip-hop, jazz, salsa and merengue with traditional Broadway show tunes. Those same qualities make the film a representational breakthrough for mainstream Hollywood.

The weaknesses of the show were chiefly in its sentimental book, more of a vignette-driven mosaic than a satisfyingly shaped narrative. Hudes hasn’t quite conquered the structural limitations in her adaptation, and Chu perhaps overcompensates by investing heavily in the frequent “fiesta” peaks. Still, a slight imbalance in pacing and energy doesn’t diminish the pleasures of this fizzy entertainment, especially when Ramos is center-screen plying his megawatt charm.

The primary plotline involves Usnavi’s ambition to sell up and buy the beach refreshment kiosk once owned by his father back in the Dominican Republic, the setting of a childhood vacation that still provides his happiest memories. That plan entails some regret, since it means abandoning any chance that his longtime infatuation with Vanessa (Melissa Barrera) will develop into love, even less so since she’s itching to trade the Heights for downtown to break into the fashion industry.

Usnavi was raised since his parents’ early death by Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz, reprising her Tony-nominated Broadway role), the Cuban surrogate grandmother to pretty much the entire community, whom he plans to take with him. He also hopes to coax his smart-mouthed teenage cousin and bodega helper Sonny (scene-stealing livewire Gregory Diaz IV) into joining them. Sonny’s home life with his boozing dad (Marc Anthony) doesn’t provide much incentive to stay, but the cocky kid feels his place is in America, even if his undocumented status poses challenges.

One of Hudes’ most significant updates to the material is the acknowledgment of conservative government moves to overturn DACA, introducing an immigrant rights protest at a climactic point and refashioning the conclusion to centralize Sonny’s future plans. Elsewhere, the screenplay smooths over some of the show’s conflicts, including an outbreak of looting during a city-wide power blackout, and parental objections to the story’s secondary romance due to differences in racial background.

That union is between Benny ( Corey Hawkins ), the Black dispatch worker at cab service Rosario’s, and Nina (Leslie Grace), whose widowed father Kevin ( Jimmy Smits , ageless) owns the struggling business. Nina has dropped out of Stanford at the end of freshman year, feeling like an outsider in that atmosphere of wealth and privilege but using the financial burden as her justification. The weight of community expectations on her shoulders as the one destined to make her mark in the world is nicely expressed in the song “Breathe.” Kevin’s self-reproach over being unable to fund his daughter’s education opportunities causes him to consider drastic measures after already selling off half his storefront.

The discovery that a winning $96,000 lottery ticket was purchased at Usnavi’s store prompts another of Chu’s (literally) splashy set-pieces. That one, with Busby Berkeley-style water ballet elements, steers the entire ensemble to Highbridge Pool for a production number in which all the principals sing of how they’d spend the cash. ( So You Think You Can Dance vet Christopher Scott did the exuberant choreography.) But the owner of the winning ticket is withheld until the end of the movie in a disclosure that few won’t see coming.

There’s an amusing gossip grapevine fed by Vanessa’s boss at the local hairdressing salon, Daniela ( Daphne Rubin-Vega ), in ‘No Me Diga,’ flanked by Carla (Stephanie Beatriz) and Cuca (Dascha Polanco). However, Daniela is also feeling the squeeze of gentrification; buckling under rent increases, she opts to move her salon to the Bronx. But she still summons the pluck to lead a rallying cry in “Carnaval del Barrio,” three days into the power outage when the temperature has soared to 106. It’s fun to see original Rent star Rubin-Vega shimmying back into the spotlight, even if that’s arguably one upbeat party number too many.

Among the movie’s welcome moments of relative calm, the loveliest is Benny and Nina’s duet, “When the Sun Goes Down,” which has them magically dancing up and down apartment block walls and around fire escapes in one of Chu’s more enchanting flourishes. Both performers are appealing, but Hawkins is the revelation, with the sweetest of singing voices and graceful ease in his dance moves. Another highlight comes from Abuela Claudia, the warm soul of the movie in Merediz’s big-hearted performance. Her solo, “Paciencia y Fé (Patience and Faith),” shares her credo while conjuring the Havana of her youth in the New York subway.

Hudes frames the story with some heavy-handed misdirection relating to Usnavi’s ultimate choice, but Ramos — a discovery of the original Hamilton cast — overcomes the script’s flaws with a magnetic performance bursting with personality. He sweeps the audience along even when the action ambles, losing the focus among too many characters.

Vanessa, on the other hand, feels shortchanged, her dream fading in and out. Aside from seeing her salvage textile remnants from a dumpster, we get little evidence of her passion for design until an underwhelming off-the-rack reveal at the end. The conflict in her hesitant romance with Usnavi feels a tad forced, but the actors nonetheless make a winning couple.

It’s a cute joke having a song from Hamilton as the hold music on a phone call at one point, even if it might be a questionable choice to draw attention to a show whose artistry is far superior to this one. But it’s futile to resist the generosity of spirit that powers In the Heights , which extends its adoration to entertainment trailblazers in colorful murals of Latina icons requiring first names only — Chita, Rita, Celia.

The movie glows with an abundance of love for its characters, their milieu and the pride with which they defend their cultural footprint against the encroaching forces of New York development that continually shove the marginalized further into the margins. The resilience with which the characters claim their place in the fabric of city life is exhilarating.

Full credits

Production companies: Warner Bros. Pictures, 5000 Broadway, Barrio Grrrl!, Likely Story, SGS Pictures Productions Distribution: Warner Bros./HBO Max Cast: Anthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, Leslie Grace, Melissa Barrera, Olga Merediz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Gregory Diaz IV, Stephanie Beatriz, Dascha Polanco, Jimmy Smits, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Patrick Page, Noah Catala, Marc Anthony, Christopher Jackson Director: Jon M. Chu Screenwriter: Quiara Alegria Hudes, based on the musical stage play with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, book by Hudes, concept by Miranda Producers: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Quiara Alegria Hudes, Scott Sanders, Anthony Bregman, Mara Jacobs Executive producer: David Nicksay, Kevin McCormick Director of photography: Alice Brooks Production designer: Nelson Coates Costume designer: Mitchell Travers Original songs: Lin-Manuel Miranda Music: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alex Lacamoire, Bill Sherman Editor: Myron Kerstein Choreographer: Christopher Scott Visual effects supervisor: Mark Russell Casting: Bernard Telsey, Tiffany Little Canfield

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'In The Heights' Is A Spirited, Socially Undistanced, Summer Crowd Pleaser

Justin Chang

Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera play Usnavi and Vanessa in the film In the Heights. Warner Bros. hide caption

Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera play Usnavi and Vanessa in the film In the Heights.

In the Heights couldn't be more perfectly timed. For one thing, summer movies don't get much more summery than this one, which takes place during a record-breaking New York heat wave. For another, this vibrant screen adaptation of the Lin-Manuel Miranda stage musical captures something we've largely gone without over the past year: a joyous sense of togetherness.

This is the most socially undistanced movie I've seen in months. The action unfolds in crowded store aisles and gossip-filled beauty salons where everyone knows everyone. The musical numbers, which blend hip-hop, Latin pop, salsa and other styles, frequently spill out into the surrounding neighborhood. The actors become dancers in an electrifying street ballet.

Watch The First Full Trailer For Lin-Manuel Miranda's 'In The Heights' Film

A lot of this is packed into the movie's transporting opening sequence, which brings us into this pan-Latino barrio in Washington Heights. Miranda pops up in a small role as a vendor, selling shaved ice out of a pushcart, but our real guide to this Upper Manhattan neighborhood is Usnavi de la Vega, played by a terrific Anthony Ramos.

Usnavi owns a popular corner bodega that's especially prized for its café con leche. As he raps about the challenges of running his scrappy little business in a place that's rapidly being gentrified, he's joined by a chorus of voices from the neighborhood singing about their own struggles to get by.

As much as he loves Washington Heights and the people who live there, Usnavi longs to return to the beaches of the Dominican Republic where he grew up. He hopes his teenage cousin Sonny, played by Gregory Diaz IV, might come with him, but Sonny, an undocumented immigrant, dreams of becoming a U.S. citizen in a subplot that ties into recent headlines. One of the more poignant insights of In the Heights is that everyone has a different concept of home.

Music Interviews

Anthony ramos pays homage to his past on 'the good & the bad'.

Usnavi has a long-standing crush on Vanessa, played by an excellent Melissa Barrera, who's hoping to move downtown and become a fashion designer. Leslie Grace plays their friend Nina, an academic superstar who's just had a rough year at Stanford, where she feels she doesn't belong. But her father, Kevin — a nice turn by Jimmy Smits — wants Nina to stick with it: If she can't get out of the Heights and succeed, he thinks, what hope is there for anyone else?

Kevin, who immigrated to New York from Puerto Rico decades ago, runs a cab company that's one of the few remaining Latino-owned businesses in the area. As rents go up and people and businesses are forced out, the community gets a shot of excitement when Usnavi finds out that someone bought a winning lottery ticket for a $96,000 jackpot from his bodega.

Lin-Manuel Miranda On Disney, Mixtapes And Why He Won't Try To Top 'Hamilton'

Movie Interviews

'the past isn't done with us,' says 'hamilton' creator lin-manuel miranda.

I saw In the Heights onstage in Los Angeles back in 2010, and while the screenwriter Quiara Alegría Hudes has made some smart tweaks and trims to her original book for the musical, some of the material's basic weaknesses persist here. The various romantic and aspirational subplots are engrossing enough, but feel thinly stretched at more than two hours. Washington Heights looks more vivid and immediate on-screen than it did onstage, but in some ways the simplistic, relentlessly upbeat nature of the story seems all the more glaring.

Still, there's nothing wrong with staying upbeat right now, and the director Jon M. Chu is very much up to the task. Chu previously directed Crazy Rich Asians , and he's good at squeezing resonant ideas about generational conflict and cultural confusion into a deft, crowd-pleasing package. It's worth noting that Chu also made two entries in the Step Up dance-movie franchise, and while I sometimes wish he would slow down the editing and let the musical numbers breathe more, the sheer dynamism of his filmmaking is pretty hard to resist.

In the Heights may not be a great movie, but it's a pretty great moviegoing experience. There are lovely moments here, like when Benny and Nina do a surreal, gravity-defying dance along the side of an apartment building. There are also exhilarating ones, like when the neighborhood, reeling from a heat-wave-triggered blackout, pulls together to throw the mother of all block parties.

And there's a knockout solo from Abuela Claudia, the neighborhood's adopted grandmother, played by Olga Merediz, wonderfully reprising her Tony-nominated role. Claudia's big number is called "Paciencia y Fe," or "Patience and Faith," values she's clung to since she moved from Cuba back in the '40s. She's the living embodiment of this movie's loving and enduring spirit.

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‘In the Heights’ Review: Big Screen Version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Other Broadway Hit Is a Dream Come True

David ehrlich.

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So exuberant and full of life that it would probably convince you the movies were back even if they hadn’t gone anywhere, “ In the Heights ” is the kind of electrifying theatrical experience that people have been waxing nostalgic about ever since the pandemic began — the kind that it almost seemed like we might never get to enjoy again. In that sense, Jon M. Chu ’s super-glossy Broadway adaptation hits with equal parts rapture and relief. Seeing this massive, guileless, heartfelt piece of Hollywood entertainment on the big screen is like coming home after a long year in exile only to find that it’s still there, and maybe even better than you remembered.

This is the story of a New York City block that’s on the brink of disappearing, and it naturally carries an extra charge now that its medium is as delicate as its message. Then again, the threat of commercialized self-erasure has been cooked into Miranda’s anti-gentrification lament since he wrote the first drafts of it as an undergrad at Wesleyan.

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A full-throated celebration of the diverse Latinx community that’s been the lifeblood of Washington Heights since the white flight of the 1960s, “In the Heights” paved the way for “Hamilton” by transposing hip-hop, salsa, merengue, and other decidedly non-white sounds into a cadence that would appeal to Broadway audiences. The show is steeped in the customs and characters who defined Miranda’s upper-Manhattan neighborhood, but that local flavor has been filtered through the mind of a musical theater nerd whose heart is evenly split between the likes of Big Pun and Jonathan Larson. That isn’t to suggest “In the Heights” was somehow “not Latino enough” for this Jewish critic from 103rd Street or for anyone else, but rather to say that watching it at the Richard Rodgers Theatre could make you wonder if the show was only being staged for the same tourists who get lost on the way to the Cloisters or whatever in the opening number.

That cynicism might naturally be even more pronounced now that Miranda is an overexposed iconoclast whose baseline sincerity invites a certain amount of cringe, and whose personal ode to an under-represented community has been turned into a major summer blockbuster by a non-Latinx filmmaker whose idea of visibility in “Crazy Rich Asians” was making everyone larger than life. That approach isn’t available to Chu here. This may be another story about ridiculously photogenic people, but they exist at street level. They’re bodega clerks and hairdressers. They’re small-business owners who’ve rooted themselves into the hot concrete of Washington Heights so that their children would be free to bloom elsewhere. They’re Cuban-American grandmothers who’ve adopted every stray kid in the neighborhood, and preach a gospel of patience and faith while they wait for a sign from God that they were right to flee La Vibora for the George Washington Bridge — confirmation that will never come. They’re dreamers in every sense of the word, however small those dreams might be.

Chu doesn’t really know how to do small, so he looks for the spectacle inside the stuff of everyday life. As usual, he finds it through movement. This is a portrait about “a people on the move,” and Chu illustrates that idea as literally as possible, not only by channeling it through Christopher Scott’s propulsive choreography but also by physicalizing the inter-generational rhythms of immigrant identity. Even on its static Broadway set — shaken to life every night and twice on Sunday like a snow globe in a heatwave — “In the Heights” was animated by its fevered insistence that home is something people take with them wherever they go. By cracking that snow globe open and watching it spill onto the actual streets of Washington Heights, Chu has created a film that makes you feel like its characters are dreaming with their eyes open.

Here is a musical so magical and assured that even its missteps seem like good ideas. At the very least, Quiara Alegría Hudes — who also wrote the book for the Broadway show — deserves credit for a screenplay that makes bold choices, emphasizes migratory churn even when it means cutting entire characters, and strives to keep up with the times (risky business in a story about how they’re always changing). This “In the Heights” begins with a labored framing device that falls flat even as it helpfully introduces the promise of home as a place that tends to be found somewhere between where you come from and where you hope to go.

Inheriting Miranda’s role with one of the most charismatic and radiantly likeable performances you’ll ever see on a screen of any kind, Anthony Ramos plays Usnavi as a naturalized storyteller with a twinkle in his eye, and we meet him in his element: Sitting on the Dominican beach of his dreams and telling some precocious kids about the special neighborhood that he kept together from behind the register of the bodega that his dad bequeathed to him. This is a lot to handle at the start of a movie where even the best parts demand a certain tolerance for cheesy musical theater tropes, and it grates every time Chu comes back to it.

As anyone who’s familiar with the show might already suspect, things heat up in a hurry as soon as the action heads north to New York and it lights up on Washington Heights (up at the break of day) for 12 minutes of pure cinematic euphoria that almost make up for the 12 months without it. The streets are literally made of music — down to the manhole covers that spin like turntables — as Usnavi heads to work in a sequence that moves with the grace and purpose of someone weaving a community from the thread of a million separate dreams.

Every character who walks through the doors of that bodega is cast to perfection; maybe there “ain’t no Cassiopeia in Washington Heights,” but a new star is born in this movie virtually every other minute. Even the extras seem like they’re about to become famous (especially the piragua guy). After Ramos, top of the list might have to be Melissa Barrera , whose headstrong, ab-forward Vanessa is such a compelling dream girl that it’s hard to believe Usnavi has room for any other sueñitos in his head. He wants to move back to the Dominican Republic, while she only wants to move downtown and join the fashion industry, but the mileage hardly seems to matter for mutual crushes who are heading in opposite directions.

Wherever Usnavi winds up, he won’t be there alone. His little cousin Sonny (a funny Gregory Diaz IV, boasting an impressive flow) will follow him wherever he goes. If Usnavi stays put in the Heights, he can always kick it with his best friend Benny, a handsome taxi dispatcher whom the golden-throated Corey Hawkins plays with such charm and backbone that the movie hits a new altitude every time he’s on screen. It’s a performance so buoyant that it takes a second to clock what’s strange about the sequence where Benny dances up the side of an apartment building with his boss’ daughter (Leslie Grace shines as homesick Stanford student Nina Rosario, ambivalent about her role as the girl who got out, while Jimmy Smits is the movie’s tortured soul as the dad who cherishes Washington Heights because it allowed him to send his baby somewhere else). The most ecstatic stretches of “In the Heights” don’t merely suspend disbelief; they change the gravity of the world around you.

We also meet gossipy salon workers Daniela (“Rent” icon Daphne Rubin-Vega) and Carla (“Brooklyn 99” favorite Stephanie Beatriz), most notable for their unapologetic plans of moving to the Bronx; gentrification is a massacre not a war, and these ladies are the loudest sign of the color that’s being squeezed out of Usnavi’s neighborhood. For now, the weak heartbeat of the Heights still belongs to “Abuela” Claudia (Olga Merediz, reprising the role she originated on Broadway), whose solo — beginning on a subway car that worms through time from contemporary Manhattan to the Havana of her youth — epitomizes Chu’s emphasis on lives of constant transition.

It’s the most poetically staged number in a movie that prefers to mix the bombast of a Busby Berkeley musical with the wistful fantasy of a daydream, full of “little details that tell the world we are not invisible,” even if these characters are sometimes the only ones who can see them. Almost the entire company comes together for an all-timer of a sequence at the Highbridge Park public pool sequence that splits the difference between those two energies and highlights how people can move when they don’t have to sing live. Some flourishes work better than others — cartoonish illustrations pull focus from the first part of “96,000,” while the massive reams of fabric that drape over the entire neighborhood as Vanessa unspools her dream in “It Won’t Be Long Now” tip from sweet imagination into garish CGI unreality.

Chu hits a lot more often than he misses, and always when it counts most. One early shot finds Usnavi staring out from his bodega while in the reflection on the window in front of him we see dozens of dancers pop and lock together on the street outside; it’s a perfect and unshakeable expression of someone being split between two worlds even as their home fades into the stuff of memory. The songs of “In the Heights” lack the historical staying power that Miranda later brought to “Hamilton” (some of them sound like first drafts for those later hits), but the cast fills them with such an urgent life force that it hardly matters if the Piragua Guy’s song one of the catchiest things here.

Like so many of its characters, the movie has inherited a number of personal choices that it’s powerless to change, and resisting those choices has a way of tightening their grip. Hudes’ clever script rearranges some of the numbers to give the movie a clearer shape than the show ever had, but the energy still flags in a story that naturally does a better job of establishing inner turmoil than it does of resolving it. Despite the nod to “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Usnavi’s epiphanies still depend on the kind of whiplash that only works on stage.

Hudes also nixes some of the more charged material in order to emphasize the tenuous promise that America offers to people on the move. For all of its frustrated romance, “In the Heights” has always been more nuanced and honest about the unsettled nature of the immigrant experience than seems possible for a hit Broadway show, and so it’s unfortunate that Hudes’ most overtly political new thread is woven into the old material with a clumsiness that makes some of its most realistic moments ring false. For all of Chu’s gifts, shooting a believable protest scene isn’t one of them.

“In the Heights” is a time capsule at heart — one that’s every bit as focused on “who lives who dies who tells your story” as the next musical that Miranda wrote — and it would rather stumble over a few awkward moments than sweep anything under the rug. Unlike the neighborhood it loves so much, this movie will never change. It will never be a victim of the urban amnesia that forced Chu’s production design team to dress Washington Heights in subtle period drag. Its characters will always be waiting there for you, even the ones who are desperate to leave it behind.

This vivid and revitalizing work of cultural memory couldn’t be more at home in the movie theaters that it’s willing back to life. It leaves you so grateful that someone kept the lights on and preserved the honey-sweet (and slightly embarrassed) vertigo that sweeps over your whole body when you sit in a dark room and surrender to a good musical. All you have to do is see it for yourself. As Usnavi would say: “C’mon! Let’s go!”

Warner Bros. will release “In the Heights” in theaters on Friday, June 11. It will also be available to stream on HBO Max for 30 days. 

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Ramshackle Dreams Make In the Heights a Believable Fairytale

Last March, In the Heights wound up being the last film I saw in a theater before COVID-19 shut down New York. I had just arrived at a press screening when I learned that our physical office was closing and that everyone would work from home until further notice. This made watching the movie a bittersweet experience. The vision of community, the sweaty intimacy of crowded street corners and apartments and clubs, the revolving door of neighbors and friends drifting through each other’s days like surrogate family, not to mention an enduring, frustrated love for the tousled grandeur of the city itself — all these things, even the very idea of them, felt like they were quickly receding into the past, with little insight into when they might, if ever, return.

Of course, even without a pandemic, In the Heights (now out in theaters and on HBO Max, after a year of delays), directed by Jon M. Chu from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical love letter to the largely Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights, was already suffused with a gentle melancholy — not exactly nostalgia, but a sense of things passing. There’s a fairy-tale retrospection built into the film’s framing device, as our hero, Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), sits at an idyllic beachside bar talking to a group of kids about “a faraway land called Nueva York” and a “barrio called Washington Heights.” (“Say it, so it doesn’t disappear,” he implores them.) His story centers on what would have been his last days in New York, as he prepares to leave behind the bodega he has run for most of his life and return to the Dominican Republic to restore his late father’s beloved bar. The neighborhood is changing, gentrification is encroaching, and Usnavi is tired of slaving away just to make ends meet. Once upon a time, moving to America meant a better life; now, it seems like you must leave to improve your lot.

The bar he hopes to reopen is called “El Sueñito” — “Little Dream” — and the film’s four protagonists all have their distinct little dreams, each revealing a different relationship to this community. Usnavi wants to go back to his family’s homeland, where he believes he spent the best days of his life as a child; Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), the aspiring designer Usnavi not-so-secretly longs for, intends to move downtown to open her own fashion store in the West Village; Nina Rosario (Leslie Grace) has just returned from a tumultuous first year at Stanford determined not to go back but also mortified of disappointing all the family and neighbors who had such high hopes for her; Usnavi’s best friend Benny (Corey Hawkins), who has feelings for Nina Rosario, wants to continue diligently working for the car service owned by her father Kevin (Jimmy Smits), a situation complicated by the fact that Kevin is thinking of selling the business to help pay for his daughter’s tuition.

This quartet of young lovers drives the story, but they’re just part of the expansive tapestry on display. The film’s numbers, drawn from a wide range of musical styles, rarely follow a single emotional through line, instead presenting entire symphonies of character, gesture, and subplot. The movie was shot on location in Washington Heights, lending it an immediacy that makes for a vibrant, occasionally dissonant combination with the outsized aesthetic of a studio musical. Chu simultaneously blends the casual, the lived-in and intimate with a traditional musical’s broad gestures and precise rhythms and dream logic, as the actors flip easily between the naturalistic and the theatrical.

That idea is certainly not new, but it doesn’t always work this well. The film has several show-stoppers, with the best one coming right in the middle, as news that Usnavi’s bodega sold a winning lottery ticket that will pay out $96,000 percolates through the crowd at a giant public pool . Everybody sings, in their own style and cadence, about what they would do with such a sum. Throwaway dance moves, bits of slapstick, glimpses of gritty sincerity are cut against grand, highly coordinated movements. It’s like Busby Berkeley by way of Vittorio De Sica. The musical miniatures within the grander scheme make the individual singers’ hopes and fears palpable, but when the camera pulls out and we see the whole pool rise up for the chorus, the effect is overwhelming, as if the power of a thousand dreams has somehow transformed reality itself.

This sort of informal awkwardness clashing against exacting choreography is the film’s sweet spot. (It’s also where Chu has always thrived, as his lovely entries in the Step Up series demonstrated years ago.) It works during the film’s softer moments, too. Late in the movie, when two of our young lovers dance gently and vertically along the side of an apartment building, the moment startles not for technical reasons — it’s the simplest of effects — but because the dancers are clearly experiencing the wonder of what they’re doing, as if surprised that their emotions have allowed them to defy the laws of gravity. They’re in love, and they’re a little freaked out by how it has literally upended their world. Push too far in either direction — make the dancers too confident, or make them too hesitant — and the scene would lose its charm. Their uncertainty heightens their grace, which in turn heightens their humanity. The same could be said for In the Heights itself, which achieves a ramshackle beauty all its own.

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The makers of In the Heights on how they turned the hit Broadway musical into a movie

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Quiara Alegría Hudes, and Jon M. Chu talk about the challenges and joys of adapting for the big screen.

by Alissa Wilkinson

After years of development delays — and then a big pandemic delay — In the Heights is finally headed to the screen. Written by Hamilton ’s Lin-Manuel Miranda and playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes, and directed by Crazy Rich Asians ’ Jon M. Chu, it’s a joyous, electric movie musical that celebrates the mostly Latino community in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in upper Manhattan.

The movie taps into the big dreams of its characters, including bodega owner Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), aspiring designer Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), Stanford student Nina (Leslie Grace), car service dispatch operator Benny (Corey Hawkins), and many more of their friends and loved ones. Shot on location in the Heights, it feels like it’s hitting at the perfect moment, with theaters in the US reopening and people rediscovering their communities and the movies at the same time.

Ahead of the film’s debut, I spoke with Miranda, Hudes, and Chu via Zoom, in separate conversations, about similar themes: how they saw their own youthful dreams reflected in the film, the genesis of the project, the challenges and thrills of adapting the stage play for the big screen, and shooting in a neighborhood like Washington Heights. Below, I’ve compiled our chats into one look at a vibrant movie musical that came along at just the right time.

On the creators’ youthful dreams and love for musical theater

Lin-manuel miranda  .

Theater saved my life. For me, it was like an invincibility cloak. So much of the trauma of high school is the life-or-death stakes inside your grade at any given time. But in theater, you make friends with kids in other grades. You’re doing something that none of you are getting paid for or getting credit for. You’re just trying to make something greater than the sum of your parts. And you suddenly have little pockets of allyship all over the school. I remember very distinctly when someone hated someone else, or someone wasn’t friends with me anymore, I’d be like, “Okay, I’m going to go visit my friends a grade younger and talk to them about it and maybe we’ll listen to Rent together.” The world gets so much bigger.

And you’re trying to make something together. I remember our “illegal” rehearsals, because school rehearsal wasn’t enough time. We would go to a church basement in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. For me, that meant taking the A train to the D to the R, an hour and a half, to do rehearsals during spring break so that it could be the best thing it could be. We were giving our vacation to do that. The way you learn about sacrifice, and the way you learn that the world is bigger than the immediate drama of the present, is a lifesaver in high school.

Quiara Alegría Hudes  

As a teenager, I loved writing. I loved music, I loved books. I did love theater, too, though it wasn’t so accessible to me as a child. But the times I did get to go see plays and musicals, I was really rocked by them. I found it so fun to write. That was like my version of playing with Barbies. I would make a magazine. I would make a poem. I don’t know if I would even name it as my dream, because it was so much fun to do in the moment. It wasn’t about the end goal. It was about how great and wonderful it made me feel, just the creative act.

Jon M. Chu  

I grew up in the Bay Area, and my parents would take me to San Francisco every weekend, whether it was musical season, opera season, or ballet season. So I saw it all — whether I paid attention or not, that’s another thing. I’m the youngest of five kids, so you can imagine us getting restless in the seats! 

But I loved it. It was always in me. I took tap dance for 12 years growing up, and piano, and drums, and saxophone, and violin, so music was always around. 

I remember being in Pacific Overtures in fifth grade, a professional tour that was coming through. I played the boy in the tree. The incredible [original Broadway cast lead] Mako was in it, and it was an all-Asian Broadway show. At that moment, that felt very normal to me. I know that that stayed with me through all these years.

Even though I performed a lot growing up, as a kid, you don’t know if you’re a filmmaker or a storyteller, or how to do that, especially back then. So in a way, theater was the only way in. I realized I was a terrible actor and singer much later and realized that behind the scenes was much more my spot.

How — and why — Miranda and Hudes wrote the original musical together

Lin-manuel miranda .

A lot of things went into that incredibly fertile creative time for me. I wrote [the first draft of In the Heights ] on a winter break [from college]. I didn’t sleep. My long-term girlfriend went abroad. So suddenly, I had all this time, and all this angst, which are two of the ingredients you need the most when you’re 19 years old.

At that time I was living in the Latino program house [at Wesleyan University]. It was called La Casa de Albizu Campos, and it was on-campus housing. At Wesleyan, there’s a program house for every kind of cultural affinity. To get into La Casa, you needed to write an essay about how you plan to serve the Latino community at Wesleyan. My entrance was the arts. I was, I think, the only arts major in my house. I was there with engineering majors and math majors. But we were all first-generation or second-generation Latino kids. I didn’t have that experience in high school. And suddenly I had friends who were really just like me in that we were as fluent in some things — Marc Anthony, the TV we grew up with, Walter Mercado — as we were with mainstream American culture. 

I think that was a big part of me being able to access more of myself in my writing. Everything I’d written prior to then kind of sounded like [ Rent composer] Jonathan Larson, kind of musical theater-ish, rock-ish stuff. But I didn’t bring any of my culture to it or any of my heritage to it.

Living in that house, I realized, “Oh, there’s more out there like me. I just needed to write the truest version of what I know.” This was in 1999 or 2000, at the time of the first Latin pop boom. Ricky Martin, “Cup of Life.” Marc Anthony singing in English for the first time. Enrique Iglesias, “Bailamos.” I’m watching all these incredibly talented Latin guys.

But they’re all incredibly hot Latin guys, and I was like, “That’s not me .” 

I had directed West Side Story at my high school years before and realized that there was nothing in the musical theater canon that played to any of my strengths. So it was like, “Let me write what is missing.” Then I had all of these other forces pushing on me that led to In the Heights . Can we talk about ourselves with love? Can we talk about our neighborhoods? And have a fully Latino cast?

I moved to New York in 2004, in August. I came to New York with a handful of plays I had written about the Latino community in Philadelphia, which is where I’m from. A producer heard one of those plays and was like, “I know this guy who’s writing a thing, and maybe you guys should really get together and have a conversation.” 

So Lin and I were put in a room together. We didn’t know each other but we were both kind of up to something similar, which is this urgent, joyous passion and habit of wanting to describe our life as young Latinos in this nation.

When we met up — actually, at a cafe near where we ended up doing our off-Broadway run — we were like, “Are we long-lost cousins?” We both had these strong matriarchal figures who were basically community and family centerpieces, our abuelas. We also had parents who came to the United States. They didn’t have a completed community to just plug into; they had to literally build the community that they were inhabiting, through leadership, through advocating for services.

So we had a lot in common and we wanted to join forces and tell the story.

When we were working on the stage version, we would get together sometimes once a week, sometimes two or three times a week. Often it would be in Lin’s apartment, up in Inwood [in upper Manhattan]. I would be writing, with my notepad or my laptop, curled on a corner of his green pleather sofa. I’d say, “I want to work on “ Sunrise ” for a moment.” But there’s not even a song yet called “Sunrise” — there’s just an idea of what it might be. So I’m like, “You go work on the second verse of Nina’s song ‘Breathe,’ because maybe it could have an idea .”

So he’s skateboarding up and down his very long hallway, which is how he comes up with ideas. I come up with ideas either by sitting statue-still or taking a walk. When one of us had an idea, we would write it out, then tell the other one what we had come up with. It’s a lot like a relay race, passing the baton back and forth. Then we would meet with Tommy Kail, the director, after a few of those sessions and share with him the work that we had come up with together. Tommy would ask questions, he would point out weaknesses, he would tell us, “Oh, this thing really resonates. Go further on that. Take that to the next step.”

Part of the genesis of the show was Latino representation in musical theater, which has a miserable track record. I think the only place with a worse track record is Hollywood — maybe not worse, but super different. It’s very hard to find Latino stories without crime or drugs at the center of them when it comes to mainstream Hollywood representation. That’s just not what we were interested in, but it’s so prevalent.

If you go read the reviews of the original Broadway show, they were like, “This is Sesame Street . There’s no drugs, there’s no crime.” We had to have the audacity to write about ourselves with love, and to write about struggling businesses and struggling with college and the stuff that everyone else has permission to write about but us, apparently. If we do it, we’re airbrushing. 

It’s unfair to put any kind of undue burden of representation on In the Heights . Quiara and I are first-generation kids, and we write from our perspective. What we tried to do was grab the things we share. There are so many millions of stories — there’s a song in Heights called “Hundreds of Stories,” but there’s millions of stories — from the cultural specificities of the Puerto Rican American experience, the Dominican American experience, the Cuban American experience, and we couldn’t get our arms around all of that.

What we can get our arms around is: If you come from somewhere else, what do you share? What do you pass on to your kids? How do you feel at home, or not at home? And have every character wrestle with variations on that question.

Deciding what to change when migrating In the Heights from stage to screen

It’s crazy to think, but this is my first actual musical. I feel like I’ve been doing musicals my whole life, so it’s very strange to be like, “Oh, no, no, you actually haven’t incorporated lyrics and songs into your stuff.” That was a different experience, especially when you’re working with Lin-Manuel Miranda, who’s the greatest lyricist and musician of our time. He crammed so much into each song. I have to help the audience get clarity — not just hearing the words, but understanding the words. 

That was a process for me. It wasn’t just expressing it through movement, although movement could help express those things. Movement was just one piece of many different types of language that we needed to use. The biggest challenge was finding a cast that spoke all these languages, that could ebb and flow between the languages without a blink of an eye, without you noticing when they jump to a new language. It had to be so natural to them, so that we felt that they were all coming from the same source of energy, not a new source of performance. The biggest thing we did was hire a cast that understood that instinctively, so I didn’t have to try to make that happen.

Quiara Alegría Hudes   

We had to make the decision: Are we going to keep In the Heights in 2008-2009, which was a different world than the one we were adapting it in? We decided to make it contemporary. So, what is the community talking about right now? One of those answers was immigration and our undocumented family, friends, neighbors. These have always been really important issues in the community. But the fever pitch, the way that immigration was being used as the sort of litmus test of Americanness, and even humanity — it felt like we had to address it. And I was really excited to address that more directly in the writing. 

Another one was the national conversation that happened around microaggressions. That was new since In the Heights opened on the stage, at least at a national level. All of a sudden I had a new vocabulary for some of the experiences that Nina had been going through at college. It helped me articulate not just the financial stresses that her Stanford education put her family under, but also the cultural dislocation that she felt there, that was pretty profound, that made her wonder, “Is this worth it? Is this worth my parents sacrificing so much for when I’m not even sure I’m wanted there?”

Those are some of the things that had happened in the intervening years. I was like, let me dig into this. Let me sink my teeth in.

One of the biggest choices we made at first was that this is not about gentrification. This is not about the big, bad mayor coming in and buying things out.

In fact, there was no villain in this movie. This is a post-gentrification moment, a moment where it’s happening, so what are you going to do now? Everyone was going to deal with this in their own way, whether they’re going to fight it and protest it, or others are going to go with it and take advantage of it. Some want to leave, and some want to stay. Some people don’t know what to do and are figuring it out. That center really helped us find our path of what the story was. 

Quiara Alegría Hudes    

Onstage, you have an intermission. You can cram more in, and people will have time to digest it and stuff. But it’s different on film. I knew we would have to cut some songs, maybe cut a character. I decided to cut the character of [Nina’s mother] Camila, for two reasons. I really love that character, so it wasn’t that I felt she didn’t work. It was that I could still focus on really important matriarchs in the community through [neighborhood matriarch] Abuela Claudia and through [local salon owner] Daniela, so I didn’t lose a conversation about what women’s values are in the community, and what the women bring to the table.

What I gained from it was that the relationship between Nina and her dad became more of a pressure cooker. She’s an only child. All of his hopes and dreams are on her. In some ways that is very inspiring for her and gives her a lot of direction. In other ways, that’s really unfair. She has to advocate for herself and her right to choose her own path.

Why Washington Heights wasn’t just a character, but a crew member and co-writer, too

Of course, Do the Right Thing is an inspiration to all movies in New York, I think, and to my own personal life. But the reality was, I didn’t know what it was going to be like until I got to Washington Heights, and I was shown this neighborhood by Lin and Quiara. They were the best tour guides you could ask for. Lin would say, “This is where I shot my home videos, in this tunnel at 191st Street — this is the spot.”

I was like, “I’ve never seen this in a movie before. How can we get cameras down here?”

They’re like, “That would take a lot of wires.” And I’m like, “Yeah, let’s do that. We have Warner Bros., they can do it.”

Or I thought, “We could take these old subway cars and bring it down to this old subway station.” And we could do that.

The pool — [we walked by and I saw it and said,] “What’s that?” Quiara said, “Oh, that’s the pool that we all swim at.” I’m like, “Okay, let’s go check it out.” We went in, and I thought, “This is incredible, I’ve never seen anything like that.” Quiara just says, “Yeah, this is our pool.” I said, “You guys swim in this? How funny would that be to do a Busby Berkeley/Esther Williams number in this thing, with people of all shapes and sizes and colors and tattoos and sneakers, and nobody matching? How beautiful could that be?” We walked away laughing. And then as we got in the van, I was like, “Oh, no, we have to do that. This is why we’re here.”

I think the neighborhood spoke for itself. Washington Heights wasn’t just a cast member — it was a crew member, it was a co-writer, it was all those things. Even right now, it’s our biggest fan. The people who come from there, the way they are pumping up our movie — you can feel their spirit. 

I couldn’t tell the difference between our background [actors] and the real neighborhood. Sometimes, there was no difference. There’d be that neighbor who was sitting at their stoop hanging out, playing dominoes, and I loved that we got to lean into that. My mom came to the set and I put her on the stoop. I said, “Stay here. We’re shooting this number. Don’t go anywhere.” My mom, you know, she can get into trouble.

So I go and shoot and I come back — she’s gone. I’m like, “Oh, no.” Then I hear yelling, I look up, and she’s on the second level of the building drinking beers with the neighbors outside the window. They’re like, “Oh, we saw her, and we just want to hang out.”

That’s Washington Heights for you. That’s the cultural exchange for you. I loved it so much that I had a son during the shooting of the movie, [and] I gave him the middle name Heights, because I just love that word. It made me feel the aspiration, the dreaming big, the dreaming beyond your windowsill. I wanted to say that word every day of my life. And I wanted him to hear that every day of his life.

The biggest compliment we get is this movie feels so New York. The reason it feels New York is because of that community. That’s New York. That’s not the Empire State Building New York. That’s Washington Heights.

The day we shot the “Carnaval” number, there was so much pressure that day, because we’re looking at all the flags. And we’re like, “Do we have every flag?” Because when you’re seeing it on the big screen, people want to see their flags. We can’t miss one or two. They will be shown. We had to work really hard and get all those flags in there.

Afterwards, I hear people from screenings say, “I saw my flag, I saw my flag, I saw my flag!” That’s one of the great things about the big screen.

Without my experience with Crazy Rich Asians , I’m not sure I would have understood how important a close-up of food is, or that you needed a food designer who understood the culture and all the little idiosyncrasies — what sauce was on the table! We needed to make room for that. I knew that was my job, to make the room where the cast, the crew, Lin, and Quiara could all speak up. They needed to make an environment for me where I could ask stupid questions and try to understand this thing, because I needed to then communicate that to the outside world who doesn’t know this community. 

So I think that there was a beautiful grace amongst ourselves, a safe space that we could understand each other and that we could just connect on that. I couldn’t ask for a better community to do that.

A new meaning on the big screen

While we were making this movie, I was going through a period of my life where I met the woman of my dreams, I got married, and I had just had my first little girl. So I was like, the story that I’m making right now is how I’ll tell my little girl what the world is like. And how do you do that?

I was also going through a period of time where I felt like my life with my family that I grew up with was changing and going away. It was sad to me. I kept thinking, “Our best days are in the past.” 

But then I had my little girl, and realized, “Oh, I get to watch Animaniacs again and show her? I get to show her Out of This World ? Oh, my best days are ahead.” 

So I realized, this movie was about passing on your stories, about going through life your own way but knowing that your kids are going to have a totally different way, and you’re never going to understand it. That’s going to create conflict, but that’s okay, because that’s how we progress. That America is going to be not the place that we think it is — America’s always been a dream — but what we make it. We each move it along in our own way. That centered what the movie was about for me.

In the movie version, there’s so many strong matriarchs, and there’s the notion of what makes a strong Latina. [In the movie’s framing device,] Usnavi telling the story to these little kids, these little girls — in some ways, what he’s doing is sneakily saying, “Here’s four or five or six versions of what a strong Latina looks like. There’s no cookie-cutter mold. There’s different ways to do it, and to find your strength and to find your power.” And he’s telling this to these little girls to help them find their power. 

So one new addition [in the film] is the scene where he quizzes them on famous Latinas. That’s because I was reading the screenplay and thinking, “This is in there. How do I put my finger on it a bit more and still have it be fun and comic.” So we got that particular scene, which I love. 

Why they’re so glad they waited for a delayed release

Quiara alegría hudes     .

I feel like this movie inadvertently became a really entertaining instruction manual for how we can be together again. Honestly, we’re rusty. We’re out of practice. But In the Heights is a bunch of people crammed into big spaces and crammed into small spaces, being community members together in the space.

There’s this tiny detail in the dinner scene where Daniela and Carla come in, and Carla hugs Abuela Claudia hello, and she just pinches her butt. I love it, because it’s so real. That’s totally my experience, too. We have to relearn, literally, how to hug the people that we are closest to. So it’s like the Ikea manual for getting back together with your friends and neighbors.

Jon M. Chu 

I love this movie so much. I was so excited to share this in the summer. This film has been a decade in the making. It was hard. But you know, we had other issues going on. We had to protect our families. We had to protect our neighborhoods. So [when the pandemic delay happened,] we could put it in a box and not think about it. I didn’t think about it. I think we were all really good at not thinking about it. 

Lin and I had a frank discussion last year: Should we just release it [on a streaming platform during the pandemic], to give it as a gift to people who needed it? My argument was that I’ve seen what movies can do with a whole community of people — of making movie stars that then start a whole new path. We had that in our hands. Why would we compromise that right now, and give it to people just for a short period of joy in their life, when they can have the joy later?

Plus Warner Bros. were going to spend tens of millions of dollars to make these stars stars . They are going to paint what the new face of the movie star is going to look like. And they’re going to make paths for other movies. It’s not just this movie.

That gave us focus. Who knew that we would hit just the right date, when things are opening up? And that it will premiere [at the Tribeca Film Festival] in Washington Heights, who knows how to deal with struggle, who knows how to get back up? In that number alone, “ Carnaval del Barrio ,” they’re going to show the world what it takes when you feel powerless to get back up and feel powerful.

This is a big-screen movie. I’m so glad we waited. Even though I was dragged kicking and screaming into waiting, I’m really glad we waited. Because I think a lot of people are gonna choose to see it together — and it’s a show about community.

What it was like to finally see the musical on a movie screen

Lin-manuel miranda   .

My first time seeing In the Heights on a movie screen was a few days ago [in mid-May], at a drive-in in Puerto Rico with my cousins — who, by the way, are named Kevin, Camila, and Daniella, all characters in the show. And believe me, Camila is like, “What do you owe me for cutting Camila out of the movie? The next movie is gonna be named after me.”

To watch it in Puerto Rico on the big screen — as the kids say, it hits different. The applause after every number. I always say the best week of my artistic life was the week we brought the tour of In the Heights to Puerto Rico in 2011. I got to play with Usnavi and we got to pull those flags out. It healed something I didn’t know was busted to bring that show to Puerto Rico and have them be proud of it. And I got sort of an echo of that [when I saw the movie there]. 

By the time I got to see it on a big screen, honestly, I’d seen the screener so many times that the really new element for me was being amongst audience members. It was almost emotional after this year and a half of social distancing and isolation to just hear a story with other people. I was so tuned in to the family behind me and the family to the left of me. It was pretty clear to me they had never seen the stage version of In the Heights . So they were really taking in the story for the first time. They weren’t comparing it to something else.

When they realized what was happening at the end, I could hear them gasp a little bit. I could hear them exclaim and be like, “Oh, my gosh, now that makes sense.” It was just such a joy experiencing it with other people.

What I’m excited about is what this movie will trigger in other writers and other creators. I’m focused less on, “Okay, what am I doing next?” What I want to do next is relax for a minute! I want to sit back and watch other writers tell their stories.

I hope the movie opens doors. There’s a lot of Latino writers out there telling stories. But hopefully, if the movie is successful, producers view us less as a special interest or a one-time-only opportunity, and actually relax and say, “Okay, this can just become part of the commercial fabric or the producing fabric of what we’re making.”

So I’m hoping that it is successful. I want to see other people grab that baton and run.

In the Heights premiered — in Washington Heights — on June 9 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. It opens in theaters and on HBO Max on June 10.

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These ‘In the Heights’ reviews will make you want to return to theaters

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Lights up on Washington Heights.

Opening weekend for the big-screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s debut Broadway musical “In the Heights” is finally upon us after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed its theatrical release for nearly a year.

According to critics, the “spirited,” “cheerful,” “life-affirming” and “socially undistanced” cinematic marvel is the perfect reason to return to theaters, which went dark across the country for several months because of the public health crisis.

Review: ‘In the Heights’ brings the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical vividly to life

Anthony Ramos leads a terrific ensemble in this vibrant ode to life in a Washington Heights barrio from director Jon M. Chu (‘Crazy Rich Asians’).

May 21, 2021

“To call this movie assertive would be an understatement; to describe it as small would be a lie,” writes Justin Chang for the Los Angeles Times.

“At nearly two-and-a-half hours and with a terrific ensemble of actors singing, rapping, dancing and practically bursting out of the frame, ‘In the Heights’ is a brash and invigorating entertainment, a movie of tender, delicate moments that nonetheless revels unabashedly in its own size and scale.”

Directed by Jon M. Chu , “In the Heights” centers on charismatic bodega owner Usnavi de la Vega (Anthony Ramos) living in New York City’s predominantly Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights.

While operating his bustling local business, Usnavi (originated on Broadway by Miranda) uplifts his vibrant community, finds love and dreams of escaping to his native Dominican Republic.

Entertainment & Arts

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June 11, 2021

“As a collection of interwoven stories set to the pulsing rhythms of everyday barrio life, this ‘In the Heights’ can feel as dramatically thin and overstretched as its source material admittedly was,” Chang continues in his review.

“But as a musical valentine to a close-knit Latino community, an inspired swirl of hip-hop, Latin pop, salsa and other musical idioms, its pleasures are often glorious, even transporting. It summons — and for the most part sustains — the kind of visual and musical energy that might help give the movies the resurgent jab-in-the-arm summer they’ve been waiting for.”

Written for the screen by Quiara Alegría Hudes — who also penned the book for the stage production — the movie musical features a cast including Leslie Grace, Corey Hawkins, Melissa Barrera and Olga Merediz.

See what others have been saying about the soon-to-be summer blockbuster below.

The Atlantic

“In The Heights presents a distinct and diverse version of Latino culture in the United States,” writes Carlos Aguilar . “Washington Heights is a tapestry of its residents’ homelands: a bit Vega Alta, a bit Santo Domingo, and a mélange of other locations. Miranda and Hudes have captured a beautifully fragmented community that clings to what its members have in common while cognizant that they are not a monolith.”

“‘In The Heights’ slice-of-life portraiture suggests a less ambitious undertaking than Hamilton, but it tells a story as expansive as that of a fledgling nation,” writes Danette Chavez .

“Through both musicals, Miranda demonstrates how ingrained people of color are in this country’s history: Before he reimagined a pivotal chapter in United States history with Black and Latinx actors, the acclaimed multi-hyphenate threw a spotlight on marginalized people’s fight against displacement. At the core of ‘In The Heights,’ on stage or screen, is movement — as migration, as immigration, as dancing, as code-switching, as the shift from friends to lovers. After nearly 13 years, it’s time for audiences to join the parranda.”

But Why Tho?

“There is a lot I want to say about ‘In the Heights.’ I can talk about how it’s the most stunning example of Latinx joy I have ever seen on screen. I can talk about how it takes the very real struggle and elegantly presents [it] to an audience that may not know what it’s like,” writes Kate Sánchez .

“I can talk about how I was Nina, in a place where everyone thought I didn’t belong, and how that fueled my imposter syndrome. I can talk about how the film’s most touching number isn’t one that comes from sadness, but instead, one calling for Latinx folks to raise our flags, to own our identities, and feel joy and strength with it. I can write about all of those things and somehow I would still not be able to capture the power and the beauty of ‘In the Heights.’”

CineMovie TV

“All the actors perform beautifully in their musical numbers. Miranda and Chu bring out the best in all the actors, even those not trained as singers. Actors like Hawkins and Barrera, who are not known for their vocal abilities, shine here with beautiful renditions of their singing voice,” writes Lupe R. Haas .

“Anthony Ramos, of course, is the heart of the movie. The actor is very charismatic and relatable. He holds the movie together even when the story ventures off to other character’s subplots. He tells a story in a riveting fashion that keeps your attention for over two hours.”

With ‘In the Heights,’ Jon M. Chu disrupts the movie musical. Here’s how he did it

Why Lin-Manuel Miranda says Chu was right to direct “In the Heights” and the circuitous journey the “Crazy Rich Asians” helmer took to the musical remix.

June 3, 2021

“The simplicity of the tale belies the intoxicating nature of the music, from lovely ballads to a showstopping Busby Berkeley-style rendition of ‘96,000’ at the local pool and a beautifully choreographed homage to Fred Astaire,” writes Brian Lowry .

“Throughout, the movie bursts with energy and color, with shrewd casting choices from top to bottom, perhaps especially with Grace (a singer making her movie debut) and Barrera (who co-starred in the Starz series ‘Vida’).”

Entertainment Weekly

“For all its rich tapestry and radiant ingenues, it’s that casual centering of so many marginalized voices that makes the movie feel, in its own way, revolutionary: a Technicolor marvel as heady as Old Hollywood, and as modern as this moment,” writes Leah Greenblatt .

The Hollywood Reporter

“The movie glows with an abundance of love for its characters, their milieu and the pride with which they defend their cultural footprint against the encroaching forces of New York development that continually shove the marginalized further into the margins,” writes David Rooney . “The resilience with which the characters claim their place in the fabric of city life is exhilarating.”

“Even on its static Broadway set — shaken to life every night and twice on Sunday like a snow globe in a heatwave — ‘In the Heights’ was animated by its fevered insistence that home is something people take with them wherever they go,” writes David Ehrlich .

“By cracking that snow globe open and watching it spill onto the actual streets of Washington Heights, Chu has created a film that makes you feel like its characters are dreaming with their eyes open. Here is a musical so magical and assured that even its missteps seem like good ideas.”

Latino Entertainment Journalists Assn.

“[Chu’s] direction of ‘In The Heights’ may have been scoffed at when announced but after seeing the film, it is hard to imagine any other director doing it justice,” writes Toni Gonzales .

“Chu is able to capture the culture and with a justified reverence, make it sparkle and shine. Not an easy task to do, no doubt. But Chu does it brilliantly in his choice of choreographed dance scenes, shot selections, and — as the film says — with patience and faith.”

New York Times

“Like Usnavi, the movie — bristling with ideas, verbal wit and musical invention — wears its heart on its sleeve,” writes A.O. Scott . “It also reflects his virtues: generosity, decency, hard work, pride. Ramos’s charisma is perfectly suited to the role.

“His modesty is as winning and genuine as his bravado, and he’s a strong theatrical singer as well as a subtle film actor. It would be unfair to the rest of the wonderful cast — and false to the inclusive, familial spirit that makes ‘In the Heights’ so winning — to say he dominates the screen. He’s the one who keeps the party going, and the reason it’s happening at all.”

Why ‘In the Heights’ made these 5 major changes to the story

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes explain the reasons behind the musical’s biggest tweaks from the stage to the screen.

June 10, 2021

“True, ‘In The Heights’ is a traditional movie musical, right down to its lavish Busby Berkeley-style production numbers. That doesn’t diminish its significance,” writes Raul A. Reyes . “For Latino audiences, it’s a chance to take pride in our culture. And for everyone else, it’s a reminder that Latinos live, work and pursue their dreams, just like other Americans.

“With its Spanglish, salsa dancing, and infectious beats, ‘In The Heights’ presents the Latino experience with authenticity and affection. It is a celebration of Latino heritage that America needs right now.”

“Seeing Dominicans and Puerto Ricans take to the streets may not be as novel now as it was when ‘In the Heights’ hit Broadway, but it’s no less invigorating on the big screen,” writes Peter Debruge . “Miranda’s terrific songs speak for themselves, leaving Chu to orchestrate the carnaval del barrio that does justice to everyday people of color. Holler!”

“The movie was shot on location in Washington Heights, lending it an immediacy that makes for a vibrant, occasionally dissonant combination with the outsized aesthetic of a studio musical,” writes Bilge Ebiri .

“Chu simultaneously blends the casual, the lived-in and intimate with a traditional musical’s broad gestures and precise rhythms and dream logic, as the actors flip easily between the naturalistic and the theatrical.”

Washington Post

“Melding rap, salsa, merengue and Latin pop, and name-checking the specific countries and cultures too often flattened out with the over-generalizing term ‘Latino,’ the big-screen version of ‘In the Heights’ preserves what might be Miranda’s most revolutionary accomplishment: reframing American musical theater within an entirely familiar — yet specific, authentic and invigorating — vernacular,” writes Ann Hornaday .

We Live Entertainment

“From start to finish, ‘In the Heights’ is a musical odyssey,” writes Adriana Gomez-Weston .

“The film opens with the upbeat title song, ‘In the Heights,’ then hits an early emotional note with ‘Breathe.’ Some other showstoppers are ‘96,000’ and ‘Carnaval del Barrio.’ Overall, ‘In the Heights’ doesn’t have a song or moment that isn’t enjoyable. Once again, combined with the writing talents of Quiara Alegría Hudes, Lin-Manuel Miranda exhibits his amazing ability to intertwine words and sound to create something beautiful.”

“With ‘In the Heights,’ Chu delivers the Latino equivalent of his previous box office smash ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ and knocks it out of the park,” writes Monica Castillo .

“Like ‘Crazy Rich Asians,’ not everyone is going to feel represented when they watch ‘In the Heights.’ That’s an impossible task for any movie. Yet ‘In the Heights’ can represent many things for many different viewers. It can be a story about ambitious, hard-working people chasing their dreams. It can be a reflection on the immigrant experience and the struggle to find where you belong. It can also be a tribute to our parents’ sacrifices.”

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In the heights review: a joyful, energetic musical with a moving story.

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With Dear Evan Hansen and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie upcoming, 2021 may just be the year of the musical and In the Heights , directed by Jon M. Chu ,  ushers in a fabulously strong start to the summer movie experience. The film, based on the Broadway play by Lin-Manuel Miranda (who wrote the music and lyrics) and Quiara Alegría Hudes (who wrote the book and the film’s screenplay), is an enchanting, lively, and magnetic musical adaptation. With an outstanding cast and compelling themes, In the Height s soars, bringing emotional beats together in a celebration of culture and community. 

Set in New York City’s Washington Heights, the story follows Usnavi de la Vega (Anthony Ramos), a bodega owner who dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic to fulfill the dreams of his father and is encouraged by his Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz), the neighborhood’s beloved grandmother who is always buying lottery tickets in the hopes she will win someday. His best friend Benny (Corey Hawkins) works at the local dispatch company owned by Kevin Rosario (Jimmy Smits), the father of Nina (Leslie Grace), who has just returned from Stanford and is not looking forward to breaking the news about her decision. Meanwhile, Vanessa (Melissa Barrera) is a budding fashion designer who believes she needs to move downtown to catch her big break, but struggles with finding a place to rent. The musical’s events take place over the course of several days in the midst of a summer heat wave, with each of the characters grappling with the next big steps in their lives and what their decisions mean for their futures.  

Related:  Every Hamilton Actor Returning For In The Heights

In the Heights is a rapturous celebration of the Latinx community. The film’s New York City setting is incredibly well utilized — the streets, the bodega, the public pool, the subway, and the interior rooms are all used in ways that not only elevate the story, but turn Washington Heights into an additional character. This is how cities should be employed in any story and it makes the musical all the better for it, effectively capturing the essence of the location and its diverse population. Each and every scene is also brimming with a contagious spirit, one that will make viewers want to dance along to the songs. From “96,000,” a number that implements all the characters and hundreds of extras dancing in and around the pool, to “Carnaval Del Barrio,” a sizzling neighborhood party starter (and one of the best scenes in the film), the music and lyrics work to tell the story of the characters, their journeys, and the block they call home with zeal. 

The songs and story beats bring laughter and tears, with the film balancing the highs and lows of the characters’ journeys. In the Heights is deeply sentimental, with the warmth and love of the characters enveloping even the most tension-fueled moments. It’s the strength of the characters’ relationships and the deep sense of community that makes this film all the more powerful, with emotional beats that pull at the heart strings and tender romantic sequences that are enchanting and lovely, elevated even more thanks to the actors’ chemistry (this is especially true of Corey Hawkins and Leslie Grace). The musical buzzes with energy, captivating audiences’ senses from the start. It’s visually spectacular as well, with the costume and production designs detailed and colorful. 

In the Heights also touches upon themes of belonging, what home can look like for first and second generation immigrants. With feet planted firmly in Washington Heights, the residents of the block contemplate their dreams beyond their neighborhood while also exploring their dual identities and sense of where they fit in. Some of them are able to hope for a better future, believing that things will start happening for them if they leave the neighborhood behind; others don’t have the privilege to dream at all because they aren’t deemed citizens in a country they have always called home. In the Heights also explores the pressures of generational expectations and how a parent’s dreams can be shifted to their child, which can cause a lot of tension, but is a subject that is incredibly realistic and handled with the right amount of thoughtfulness. 

While the film contends with belonging, it also celebrates bicultural identities with poignancy, heart, warmth, and pride. In the Heights is a beautifully made film and the passionate efforts that have been poured into bringing it to life are on display in every scene. There are a couple of alterations made from the original show to fit more with the flow of the film and it works, effectively enhancing the experience of the musical’s original setup without removing the heart of the story. Musicals are not so easy to adapt to the big screen — some things work in favor of the story while others don’t. However, In the Heights is engrossing, vibrant, with a thoughtful, entertainingly-told story that feels spirited and authentic.

Next:  New In The Heights Clip Showcases Movie Musical's Impressive Cast

In the Heights will release in theaters and on HBO Max June 11. The film is 143 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for some language and suggestive references.

Key Release Dates

In the Heights

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In the Heights review – a blast of sunshine, hope and hotpants

New York’s Latinx community reclaims the streets with glorious dance routines in this film of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s sparkling musical with a message

T his adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 2005 stage musical bursts on to the screen like a confetti cannon. Director Jon M Chu ( Crazy Rich Asians ) delivers a blast of sunshine, hope and hotpants. But unpeel the song-and-dance romance and escapism and there’s a socially engaged, issue-led drama under the sparkle and pizzazz.

Of course it’s not unprecedented for superficially frivolous musicals to tackle serious issues: Cabaret explored the rise of fascism in Germany. Numerous Bollywood spectaculars have delved into the caste system, and West Side Story deals with the immigrant experience and gang-based tensions. It’s with the latter that In the Heights bears some similarities: both feature Latinx communities; both unfold on the streets of New York City.

But while West Side Story is driven by conflict, at the core of In the Heights is a sentimental hug of neighbourhood unity – Washington Heights against the world, and the double-pronged assault of gentrification and discrimination. It’s from this, and from the engaging cast ( Anthony Ramos is a particular delight; Olga Merediz single-handedly shifts the whole film up an emotional notch or 10), that the film derives its inviting warmth.

Ramos plays Usnavi, the central character and the film’s narrator, a bodega worker who dreams of returning to his parents’ Dominican Republic homeland, but whose ties to Washington Heights – and in particular the lovely Vanessa (Melissa Barrera) – are hard to break.

The messaging can be a little on-the-nose at times – a climactic electrical outtage gives the film the opportunity to assert that its characters are not, in fact, powerless. But perhaps a more potent political statement is the way that Christopher Scott’s choreography claims and owns every square inch of the block. Reclaim the streets (with fabulous shoes and glorious Latin dance routines)!

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In the Heights Review

One of the best films of 2021..

This is an advance review of In the Heights, which opens in theaters and HBO Max on June 11.

A film version of In the Heights has been in the works since 2008 when the show debuted on Broadway. A number of stars had to align before it came to fruition as one of the new movies of summer 2021. Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda had to find success with Hamilton, his 2015 Broadway smash, and director Jon M. Chu had to helm the cultural sensation Crazy Rich Asians, which, while lavish and excessive, is ultimately about belonging. The In the Heights movie lives in the shadow of both these works in the way it adapts Miranda’s show. The result is a pure distillation of what he set out to achieve, updated in ways that not only work for a modern retelling but often work better than the original text. It’s also one of the liveliest and most moving films you’re likely to see this year.

The story follows Usnavi de la Vega (Hamilton’s Anthony Ramos), a bodega owner in Washington Heights with big dreams of reopening his father’s bar in the Dominican Republic, but it really follows an ensemble of friends, family, and lovers living through what feels like the last days of a neighborhood being steadily lost to gentrification. To call New York City “a character” is a well-worn cliché, but it’s a truism that bursts to life in Chu’s film, not simply through shots of streets and landmarks, but through the way each corner and sidewalk brims with life, love, and culture.

Usnavi runs his corner store with his cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV), a teenage activist, and the rest of the cast is largely introduced as they stop in for a cup of coffee. There’s Usnavi’s friend Benny (Corey Hawkins), an upbeat taxi dispatcher, Benny’s diligent boss Kevin Rosario (Jimmy Smits), and Rosario’s daughter Nina (Leslie Grace), who’s home for the summer after her first year away at Berkeley. Then there’s Usnavi’s crush Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), who’s on the verge of moving downtown to follow her fashion designer dreams, and there are a whole host of neighborhood gossips who work at the local nail salon (Stephanie Beatriz, Dasha Polanco, Daphne Rubin-Vega). There’s also a fun minor role played by Miranda himself, and to bind them all together, there’s the local matriarch Claudia (Olga Merediz), who practically raised the entire neighborhood, and whom they all lovingly call Abuela.

Abuela Claudia, an elderly Cuban immigrant, often speaks of dignity in the face of adversity and the ways people can leave their mark and be remembered. Her words now feel more vital to these characters than ever before. Their neighborhood — made up of Dominican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, and a number of other Latin American cultures — faces the prospect of permanent change, as residents and businesses are being priced out.

While the casting has been criticized for colorism — which Miranda and screenwriter Quiara Alegría Hudes have acknowledged — the film attempts to frame its tapestry as multicultural, and its perspective as multigenerational. The characters are all either immigrants, first-generation Americans, or that in-between generation that immigrated when they were young (Usnavi’s family came over from the Dominican Republic when he was eight, while Sonny was still in diapers). Washington Heights is their home, but the film takes aim at the complicated question of what home even means when change is the only constant. Usnavi remains torn between New York and his father’s home in the Dominican Republic, the first home he ever knew. Vanessa wants to move to a new neighborhood where she might be more successful, but her heart belongs to the Heights. Nina has moved even further away, to California, though she might want to drop out and return home despite shouldering the expectations of her community. The film also adds a brand-new element that didn’t exist in the show, a subplot that hits like a freight train, where one of the characters is revealed to be an undocumented immigrant. They may not have the choice of deciding what home they belong to.

These questions of belonging permeate every scene, from the subtle to the operatic, and the film wraps its story in a framing device also invented for the screen. Usnavi, years later and sporting his most Miranda-esque goatee (Miranda played the role on Broadway), narrates the film’s events to a group of children on a tropical beach. It feels like an element influenced by Hamilton, which frames its story of America’s founders as history told (and wrestled with) in the present. Here, it makes the film’s narrative wistful and bittersweet.

Right from its opening Spanglish number — the half-sung, half-rapped title track “In the Heights” — Chu, cinematographer Alice Brooks, and choreographer Christopher Scott make it clear how they plan to tell this story. It starts out restrained, waiting to burst into all-out mayhem as the music builds. The depiction of these characters and the spaces they occupy is distinctly intimate, as the camera peeks at them in the crowded corners of the bodega, often through glass fridge doors or from between messy shelves. It turns the stage’s two-dimensional backdrops into an inviting three-dimensional world, and it establishes the city’s texture before letting its streets be engulfed by dance. The first time a crowd gathers to move in unison, they’re reflected in a window, out of focus and in the distance. At 2 hours and 23 minutes in length, the film doesn’t want to tip its hand too soon. It doesn’t need to. Instead, the opening song introduces the neighborhood in fragments, through an energetic montage of people from all walks of life heading out to start their day. The film even treats the sounds of the city as music, with honking vehicles and the spritzing of sidewalk water hoses layered into the soundtrack.

Chu’s approach is multifaceted. Depending on the scene or song, the film grounds its bombast in naturalism — the actors, though they sing their hearts out, measure their performances for the camera rather than the back row of an auditorium — but as it gets deeper into its runtime, it introduces playful elements of magical realism, of frames seemingly graffitied by hand, and of dreamlike numbers that combine stage lighting with memories of the city’s past. It runs the gamut, but it rarely loses focus of its story and characters.

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There is, however, an unfortunate downside to this initial fragmented approach, which seems designed to delay gratification. The first time the film feels big, the way you expect a musical to feel is during “96,000,” in which the neighborhood gathers at a local pool. The song comes to life in a synchronized display in and around the water, but the film hasn’t yet managed to shed its penchant for quick-cuts and zippy movements; the result is haphazard, and it feels less like a story told through dance, and more like the random shot selections of a modern pop music video, where the order doesn’t matter, and the visual language has little to say. This fragmentation continues a little while longer, carrying over to a flirtatious number between Benny and Nina, resulting in a stretch of the film that drags as it approaches the 1-hour mark.

However — and this is a pretty big “however” — this brief dip in visual and narrative energy barely matters moving forward. As the threat of a blackout looms and the characters prepare to confront each other over things left unsaid, the film settles into a rhythm, both in its more intimate moments (often non-musical ones, shared over delectably photographed food) and in its more vibrant, energetic dance scenes, one of which unfolds in a scintillating nightclub.

The film’s biggest aesthetic question is how to frame people. It does this quite deftly throughout when it comes to individuals, whose stories it punctuates through close-ups. This is helped immensely by the fact that ostensible leads Ramos and Barrera are able to balance huge bursts of musical emotion with moments of restraint, culminating in a spellbinding single-take musical sequence between the two of them. The film is a rousing success in this regard, though it’s hardly a surprise; Hollywood, after all, is the realm of the individual, most often telling stories of people who rise above.

However, In the Heights is not an individualistic story. It’s one of found family and community, and one that needs its extras and dancers to feel like more than just a backdrop. The film occasionally falters at this — for instance, a candlelight vigil, which arrives at a key moment and leaves just as quickly, lacks the emotional resonance of the more personal, individual story playing out simultaneously. But the film soon finds itself in this regard, culminating in the show-stopping celebratory number “Carnaval del Barrio,” which goes against most musical instincts and places a large crowd of characters in a cramped setting, allowing their joie de vivre to feel defiant in the face of tragedy. The scene is downright overwhelming.

At its loudest, In the Heights explodes with uncontainable energy. At its quietest, it becomes a reflection on memory, and the connections that make up a culture, a story, and a history; “Little details,” Abuela Claudia says, “that tell the world we are not invisible.” But there are some moments where the film does both these things at once, as it fills the screen with small acts of heroism, and with people dancing and dreaming in darkness. Above all, it does what a great musical should do. It makes you feel alive.

Voices shake and voices bellow in this film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Broadway hit. Set in a steadily gentrifying Manhattan neighborhood, In the Heights moves smoothly between cinematic realism and the magic of the stage, in a defiant musical about what it means to belong, and what it means to be remembered. It is one of the most moving and joyful films this year.

In This Article

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In The Heights Review

26 Jun 2020

In the Heights

Before there was Hamilton , Lin-Manuel Miranda won a Tony for In The Heights , the 2008 Broadway musical set in his home neighbourhood. While fans will recognise the rhythm of his hip-hop style, this is a looser, simpler affair than his later historical epic, but one brimming with the same energy and lust for life. These characters aren’t trying to change countries or win wars, but their struggles — to make a living, find love or establish a place in the world — are no less life-and-death for the individuals involved.

There’s simultaneously a lot of plot here and relatively little that seems out of the ordinary. Our hero, and narrator, is Anthony Ramos’ Usnavi, a corner-shop owner saving up to return to the Dominican Republic and reopen his father’s old beach bar, as his neighbourhood gentrifies and old businesses are driven out. He’s crushing on Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), who can’t wait to move downtown and start her own dress shop. Meanwhile the prodigious Nina (Leslie Grace) is back in town from Stanford. She left as a golden girl, straight-A student and hope of her family and friends. But Nina is finding college life tougher than she anticipated and returns with a secret, causing conflict with her dad ( Jimmy Smits ) but bringing her closer to her once and perhaps future love, Benny ( Corey Hawkins ).

Around this centre there’s a huge cast of salon girls, small cousins and caring grandmothers, and plot lines including disastrous date nights, a winning lottery ticket, the plight of DREAMers (undocumented immigrants) under US law and a New York blackout during a heatwave. Screenwriter Quiara Alegría Hudes has trimmed the musical’s book (which she also wrote) to remove a couple of characters and songs, but there’s still the rich sense of a fully realised neighbourhood full of real people, doing real jobs. These ones just happen to burst into song sometimes. That said, establishing so many moving parts means that in the middle section you may get impatient for the plot threads to coalesce already. British audiences may struggle with the frequent lapses into Spanish slang given the small Latinx population here — though the context usually makes it clear.

This is a big, soppy, traditional musical.

Yet the pace never seriously falters because director Jon M. Chu makes each number distinct and gives the film enormous momentum. His camera drifts through the quieter scenes and shifts every couple of bars during the musical numbers, never still for longer than a few seconds. But he never resorts to the sort of frenetic music video-style cutting that might tempt a lesser filmmaker; a veteran of the two best instalments of the Step Up franchise as well as Crazy Rich Asians , he knows how to shoot dancing and when to focus on the emotion, and he’s cast sufficiently talented triple-threats to avoid any need to cut around them. He also uses clever framing, so that one dance number is reflected in the window of Usnavi’s bodega rather than seen face-on. When Chu decides to add some CG razzle-dazzle, he does so to great effect: one diss track between a bunch of male friends is partially animated as their verbal scrapping takes semi-physical form. Huge bolts of cloth spill over buildings as would-be designer Vanessa struggles to make her start, and later a couple dance up the side of a building as the sun sets on the river behind them in an achingly romantic rendition of ‘When The Sun Goes Down’.

The cast are all strong, from the relatively established Ramos — a member of Hamilton ’s breakout Broadway cast — and Straight Outta Compton ’s Hawkins to newcomers Barrera (at least, new to English-language audiences) and Grace. You won’t mind that the more established names take bit-parts, with Miranda in a third-tier role as Piragua Guy, a drinks-peddler, Marc Anthony in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role as a deadbeat dad and Hamilton ’s Christopher Jackson in a fun cameo.

It’s thanks to the uniform commitment of the young cast that the emotion hits as hard as it does. For all the rap and salsa influences and the specificity of its cultural setting — these characters take enormous pride in their heritage and the many national origins they represent — this is a big, soppy, traditional musical, a story about a tight-knit community helping one another through their issues with a shared sense of scrappy optimism and a killer sense of rhythm, to enormously uplifting effect.

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‘In the Heights’ Sets Out to Do the Impossible — And Largely Succeeds

By K. Austin Collins

K. Austin Collins

Paciencia y fe. /span> . Patience and faith. It’s what Abuela Claudia — in so many ways the emotional center of  In the Heights , Lin-Manuel Miranda ’s sun-splashed ode to the immigrant dream — preaches again and again, wearing it on her face, in her bones, even when she’s not saying it aloud. It’s a creed, a word of caution, a bit of humbling advice, and, as practiced by Abuela Claudia herself, a way of making one’s way in the world — especially if that world is America, and the one hacking their way through its indignities over the years is, like Abuela Claudia, an immigrant, a working-class outsider who holds close to her community as if her life depends on it. In the Heights argues: maybe it does. 

That creed must have been something that Hollywood upstart Miranda — alongside writer Quiara Alegría Hudes (who wrote the book for the musical ) and director Jon M. Chu ( Crazy Rich Asians ) — must have kept in mind as their project. It’s one based on a Tony-winning breakout; a charismatic, complicated piece of work by theater’s Next Big Thing, which languished in development hell for a decade. It seems you cannot tell the story of In the Heights — a musical about dreamers and dreams, people on the verge of breaking out, if only circumstance didn’t seem poised to work against them — without knowing that the story the musical tells has some disheartening echoes in its own path from stage to screen, or even simply it’s path from the small stage to Broadway. Much of it can be summed up in a recent Miranda quote from Variety : “I would get pitches from producers who only had West Side Story in their cultural memory.”

Such is the situation. It wasn’t enough, Miranda explained , for one of the show’s central characters, Nina, to drop out of Stanford for reasons less dramatic than an unexpected pregnancy or domestic abuse — reasons more damaging than damning of the institutions In the Heights wants, in its friendly but passionate way, to hold to account. When, after the great success of the show on Broadway, Hollywood (by way of Miramax and Universal Studios) balked at the idea of a studio-backed barrio musical, by and about Latinos, that had no name-brand “stars” — that category of actor which often enough depends on someone taking a chance on an unknown. It’s the “self-defeating cycle,” as Miranda has said , of an industry demanding Latino stars in order to justify its financial investment in the project while doing little otherwise to build a pool of Latino stars, fit to satisfy such a demand. It’s as if immaculate conception were a prerequisite for inclusion.

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But — paciencia y fe . The movie is here now, courtesy of Warner Brothers, after being delayed by a year thanks to the pandemic. It is arriving just in time: theaters reopened, pandemic somewhat averted, everyone itching to get outside in celebration of something — anything! Itching to be near each other again. Reviews of In the Heights must take care, as a rule, to recite that the movie simply feels good to watch, with its constant temperature checks reminding us that it’s a New York summer, and its big, busy dance scenes — an entire neighborhood taking to the intersection of West 175th and Amsterdam, in the real Washington Heights of the musical’s setting, to cut loose — and its gorgeous, talented cast, buoyed along for two-and-half hours by songs with memorable swing, gigantic doses of feeling, multiple love stories, poignant conflicts, and a pervading sense of community that somehow surpasses the forces peeling that community apart.

In the Heights is a hopeful musical — not least because it milks substantial power from the threats overhanging all of the above. The changing face of the barrio, in which old shops are getting bought out, rents are rising; a woman like Abuela Claudia can’t even afford the local dry cleaner anymore. The government is threatening to renege on its promise to beneficiaries of the DREAM Act, which ripples quietly through the movie until its immediate implications become explicit. And if that’s not enough, everyone’s got these dreams they’re clinging to — their sueñitos , as Usnavi ( Anthony Ramos ), manager of a local corner store, tells us from some point in the future.

There’s Usnavi’s dream: of moving back to the Dominican Republic, which he left for the U.S. when he was eight years old, to reopen his father’s old beachside bar. Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), the young woman he’s been crushing on, wants to move downtown to jump start her career in fashion, but doesn’t have the credit history to make that easy, nor the ready-made guarantors needed to co-sign on her behalf. Usnavi and Vanessa are tight with Nina (Leslie Grace), the girl who made it all the way to Stanford, who’s back for the summer after what was, by all accounts, a rough first year. Nina’s father, Kevin (the legendary Jimmy Smits, wonderful here), runs a car service and is, it’s clear, willing to do whatever it takes to foot the bill for his daughter to stay afloat at that prestigious school. (Nina’s ex, Benny, played by Corey Hawkins, is in the inconvenient position of working for her father.) If getting out of Washington Heights was Nina’s dream, keeping her there — underwriting her successes best he can — is her father’s. Needless to say, these dreams and others start to wear on each other. 

That’s hardly the extent of the cast, by the way, and in fact, some of the best turns are from relatively minor players: Olga Merediz as “Abuela” Claudia — Tony-nominated for her Broadway turn and equally captivating here; Rent legend Daphne Rubin-Vega as Daniela, whose salon is being priced out of its location, in one of the most effective subplots in the entire movie; and Gregory Diaz IV as Sonny de la Vega, Usnavi’s cousin, who doesn’t want to flee to DR with Usnavi because, unlike him, he has no memory of the place. He grew up here, in the United States. But even that fact comes with caveats.

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From those growing matters of aspiration and unease — to say nothing of the needs and wisdom of the rest of its broad cast — In the Heights spins its lively, complicated tale. An aspirational immigrant story that hits most every mark of the genre, but flows and overlaps and grows dense in unexpected ways. In both Miranda and Chu’s trademark styles, this is all threaded together with life spilling into the streets, musical numbers that fold reality into fantasy with an aplomb that’s as pleasurable as it is overwhelming. The music mixes hip-hop and salsa with nods to both Cole Porter and Chita Rivera, and the dance styles are equally far-reaching, drifting as far afoot from reality as a phantasmagoric modern ballet detailing a Cuban immigrant’s difficult path to peace on U.S. soil. It’s overripe with cleverness: every trick of the trade being thrown into a story that is, already, bursting at the seams to hit as many marks as it can. 

Yes, it’s a story about wanting to move up in the world. But A Raisin in the Sun , this is not. That play, by Lorraine Hansberry, has a title copped from a Langston Hughes poem about dreams deferred; the play ends on an accordingly ambivalent note. But In the Heights is, by knowing contrast, an exercise in aspiration: a feat of celebration, a musical that upgrades those dreams from the waitlist to the incoming class while also taking care to wring real drama out of the tensions and conflicts inherent to such progress, often with a sincerity that’s nevertheless knowing and smart. 

For In the Heights , these tensions are a matter of form. Miranda’s songwriting style makes good on a the ability of a musical to switch tones all of a sudden, lurching from the broad joyousness of a group number to a sonic spotlight on the internal chaos of the outlier — that party pooper at the margins who can’t quite get with everyone else’s vibe, who has doubts that’d be left unexpressed but for the fact of us, the audience, getting a peak behind the curtain of their feelings. In the rollicking “96,000,” set at a community pool, most everyone in the central cast gets in a few lines about what they’d do with $96K in lotto winnings, their dreams unspooling with musical styles (with dances to match) custom-fit to their personalities — a little Busby Berkeley here, a little B-boy contortion there. But it comes to nearly a dead halt when Vanessa, whose hopes have been somewhat dashed of late, who feels trapped, chimes in. Suddenly we’re wading in a waist-high sea of an outlier’s dirge: She’s got to get the hell out of here. “If I win the lottery, you’ll never see me again,” she sings. “Damn,” raps Usnavi, “we only jokin.’ Stay broke then!” Buzzkill averted, we’re back to business.

This particular moment isn’t a favorite of mine; it feels like the scene is trying too hard to have it both ways, giving voice to Vanessa’s doubts but with an utter lack of appeal, a moroseness, that almost feels like the movie has completely turned on her — which it hasn’t. Usnavi and Vanessa’s incursion into a later number, “Carnaval del Barrio,” with a little rainy-parade realism about the  future of the barrio, feels a little more worked through, sung to melodies that don’t make them come off as quite as much of a drag. The melodies are compatible with the occasion; like the community surrounding them, the song seems to hear them out — while also, ultimately, letting everyone else argue for the necessity of joy. It feels like real discourse. What matters more: The traditions of collective survival and celebration, or a sharp change of focus that sees the threats to that barrio as not merely imminent but already here ?

These differences, and the sacrifices, disappointments, and joys that accompany them, are what give In the Heights much of its power. They’re also what make Miranda’s work here and elsewhere ripe for counterpoint, in some corners. For all of his commercial, critical and industry success — a level of crossover fame typically denied to Broadway stars, to Tony wins, a Pulitzer win and nomination, love from the MacArthur Foundation, a bit of poaching by Disney and the rest of Hollywood, and, most crucially, widespread affection , not just name recognition, from a besotted public — Miranda’s biggest projects have tended also to attract a healthy amount of debate over their meaning and purpose, to say nothing of the politics undergirding all that flashy, progressive, earnest, and undoubtedly novel joy. Novelist and critic Ishmael Reed, sensitive to the irony of a  musical about Alexander Hamilton that somehow skated past the founding father’s crimes against Black and Indigenous people being fronted by a cast of rapping minorities, wrote a two-act play in which Miranda got haunted by the ghosts of America’s historical violence a la Scrooge on Christmas Eve. 

Point taken: We cannot sunshine-and-rhyme our way through convenient omissions; we can’t think that a clever feat of minority casting lets us off the hook. Compared to that, In the Heights is a less thorny project. But its difficulties — a little bloatedness; one love story that clearly outshines the other; bits of history and memory and cultural surveying that feel shoehorned into the story at times; and a cleverness, on Chu’s part, that risks feeling redundant — all seem to spring from a good place, as well as from circumstance. The movie, like the musical before it, knows who it’s for — and knows that it’s making up for a lot of lost time. Its highest accomplishment is that it succeeds as the star vehicle Hollywood seemed to demand: Ramos, Grace, Barrera, Merediz, Diaz — the world will be hungry for more of them. And soon. 

In the Heights knows that its mere arrival means the weight of all that history and omission sits squarely on its shoulders. And even its catchiest dance numbers can’t quite shake themselves free of that weight — an onus Miranda’s musical knowing takes on, in a gesture of community like so many of the small dignities depicted in the story. That’s a lot of responsibility. In the Heights , a very entertaining movie, largely makes good on it. The best possible outcome would be a future free of any such burden to begin with.

In the Heights is in theaters and streaming on HBO Max on Thursday, June 10th.

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In the Heights Reviews

While In the Heights deserves kudos for depicting authentic immigrant characters in an urban setting, its discomfort with exploring the natural consequences of their actions and demand for a happy ending undercut the film’s authenticity.

Full Review | Jun 12, 2024

With the vibrant soundtrack, gorgeous production and some of the best numbers in a long time such as '96,000' and 'Benny's Dispatch', there's no doubt that In The Heights makes my top five.

Full Review | Mar 1, 2024

Full of huge musical numbers and a tremendous amount of heart, In The Heights is a spectacle deserving of a cinema trip. However, the pacing issues take away a noticeable amount of enjoyment.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 6, 2023

Soars high, sweeps you off your feet, & swells your eyes with tears. It’s filled with excitement, smiles, laughs, & will make you an emotional mess.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

Though the film is not devoid of conflict, I look back on it primarily with a sense of joy and celebration.

Full Review | May 1, 2023

If you enjoyed Hamilton and you're the type of person who finds themself bopping along to tunes, you'll probably get a kick out of In The Heights -- and yes, there's a Lin Manuel Miranda cameo.

Full Review | Mar 31, 2023

In the Heights is a feel-good movie of the summer.

Full Review | Sep 28, 2022

In the Heights is an emotionally resonant epic that masterfully reinvigorates the musical genre with its electrifying ensemble and captivating choreography.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 1, 2022

The dialogue has its moments but it's the exuberant, hyper-energetic dance numbers that leave the strongest impression.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2022

Alongside his terrific DP Alice Brooks, Chu captures the effervescent spirit of a changing Washington Heights and give us a taste of the music, personality, and culture that is so deeply a part of its identity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 17, 2022

Intimacy is established via product placement, as flirting happens with Tide-To-Go pens. If only they could be used to erase all the film’s missteps?

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 9, 2022

In the Heights recaptures the old Hollywood magic of cinematic musicals.

Full Review | May 30, 2022

Comes closer than any film in recent memory to recapturing the elusive charm that made the musical genre the pinnacle of cinematic excellence for so many decades.

Full Review | May 20, 2022

A kaleidoscopic blast of cinematic energy that is as perfect a "welcome back to cinemas" as Hollywood could have given us.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | May 10, 2022

Rich with Latinx pride, its a joyful cinematic experience full of love, music, and celebration of community and life. The film honors our heritage in a way that would make our Abuelos and Abuelas proud.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 22, 2022

While the characters, their backstories and motivations may be thinly drawn, everything about them comes alive once the yapping stops and the songs begin.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 25, 2022

It is a love letter to those that doubt their worth and belonging in spaces that often are denied to them. It holds a mirror to those that feel invisible in the eye of representation and celebrates them loud and proud.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | Mar 7, 2022

Featuring Miranda in a small but enjoyable supporting role, Hamilton fandom will certainly be the driving force for people going to see In The Heights. However, incredible storytelling with be the reason they will want to watch it again.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 2, 2022

The film is fun and heartfelt, finding genuine emotion even if the overall project clearly could have been cleaned up and focused.

Full Review | Feb 22, 2022

In the Heights makes you feel like a resident of their neighborhood through the most sharable and universal mediums. As Usnavi says early on, these streets were made of music.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 12, 2022

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Lincoln heights, common sense media reviewers.

Message-heavy drama about life in the 'hood.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this TV show.

This is a very message-heavy show about helping co

Urban violence, including a teen getting shot by a

Teenage dating, with some physical contact. Teenag

"Bitch," "hell," "damn," etc.

Some brief scenes with drug addicts (raiding a cra

Parents need to know that this drama focuses on a wholesome family with strong positive values living in a dangerous neighborhood. Scenes include drive-by shootings, the aftermath of stabbings, tense stand-offs between police and criminals, and intense arguing between a husband and wife in front of their children…

Positive Messages

This is a very message-heavy show about helping communities improve, being honest and upstanding, finding positive solutions to problems, learning the importance of family, etc. The main characters are African American; good and bad characters are of all races. Lots of gang- and drug-related issues; some discussion of race relations and social problems.

Violence & Scariness

Urban violence, including a teen getting shot by a semi-automatic weapon in a drive-by, a teen lying on the street after being stabbed, and a teen being shot by police officer (some blood).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Teenage dating, with some physical contact. Teenage girls compete for male attention. An adult married couple is shown in bed together with mild sexual innuendo.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Some brief scenes with drug addicts (raiding a crack house); some discussion of drug-related crime. Some bad guys smoke, though it's rarely seen.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this drama focuses on a wholesome family with strong positive values living in a dangerous neighborhood. Scenes include drive-by shootings, the aftermath of stabbings, tense stand-offs between police and criminals, and intense arguing between a husband and wife in front of their children. Some discussion of drug dealing and gangs, as well as brief scenes depicting drug users. Some discussion of race relations and social problems. The teenage girl character gets romantically involved with a guy in school. The middle school-aged boy gets bullied, but with his mother's help, finds a clever solution to his predicament.

Where to Watch

Community reviews.

• Parents say (5)
• Kids say (3)

Based on 5 parent reviews

Not well written and casting is bad

What's the story.

A working-class family of five gives a different kind of life a try when Los Angeles police officer Eddie Sutton (Russell Hornsby) convinces his wife, Jenn (Nicki Micheaux), to give up their tiny apartment for a chance at home ownership in a more dangerous part of town. Eddie and Jenn, a nurse, initially find their neighbors unwelcoming and the presence of gangs inhospitable. The kids -- high schooler Cassie (Erica Hubbard), athletic middle kid Lizzie (Rhyon Brown), and good-natured Tay (Mishon Ratcliff) -- all struggle in their new school, facing the challenges of making new friends, proving themselves to adults, and escaping bullies. But despite the big and small hurdles the family faces, they all find a way to overcome their initial difficulties. With immense optimism and some twinkles of hope for the future of the neighborhood, the Suttons persevere.

Is It Any Good?

LINCOLN HEIGHTS tells a simplified but heartfelt tale about living in a gang- and drug-filled neighborhood where drama is everywhere and danger constantly lurks. Both adults and kids will find characters to relate to, especially teens interested in Cassie's possible romance with a handsome, mysterious new kid. But the violence, especially for such an otherwise wholesome show, is intense. In one scene, a teen is gunned down in a drive-by shooting as Eddie and his partner pursue him. Another scene shows a teen lying on the ground bleeding after being stabbed. The message is clear: The neighborhood is dangerous, and it will take the bravery and commitment of people like the Suttons to change things for the better.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about their own neighborhood. What's good about where you live? What's not so good? How could you and your other family members make your neighborhood better? Why are certain neighborhoods considered "better" than others? Do you think the show's take on what a "bad" neighborhood is reflects reality? How do violence, race, and crime interconnect on the show? In real life?

• Premiere date : January 8, 2007
• Cast : Erica Hubbard , Nicki Micheaux , Russell Hornsby
• Network : Freeform
• Genre : Drama
• TV rating : TV-14
• Last updated : June 12, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.