In the Heights

The exuberant musical In the Heights is based on the Tony-winning Broadway show created by Lin-Manuel Miranda. In the Heights celebrates immigrant aspirations and Latino subcultures, and it touches on the raw issues of racism and economic displacement. Vibrant, spirited and earnest, it’s perfect for this moment – when we’re emerging from our COVID cocoons.

The titular Heights is Washington Heights, the primarily Dominican neighborhood at the northern tip of Manhattan. Miranda’s Washington Heights is a boisterous and colorful place, filled by hard-working , marginalized people, each with his or her own dream. Life goes on with a salsa beat, and you can practically smell the carne ripiada. (Miranda himself appears in a small role as a piragua vendor.)

29-ear-old Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) runs a bodega, and employs his younger, precocious cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV). Usnavi is so infatuated with Vanessa (Melissa Barrera)that he is paralyzed from asking her out. Vanessa, a nail tech and wannabe designer, has big dreams and confidence to match. The neighborhood’s version of a magnate is Kevin (Jimmy Smits), who runs a car service, with his dispatcher Benny (Corey Hawkins). The neighborhood’s soul and anchor is everyone’s surrogate grandma, Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz).

The most interesting story thread is that of Kevin’s brilliant daughter Nina (Leslie Grace), who is just back from her first year at Stanford, which she did not find to be a welcoming place. Having suffered some unsettling indignities, he doesn’t want to return, but her dad won’t hear of it. Her old beau Benny is glad to have her back in the Heights, so…What’s best for Nina, and will everyone reach that conclusion?

The local Latino businesses are being priced out, and everyone is conscious of displacement as a real and present threat. To its credit, In the Heights doesn’t oversimplify the displacement issue with cartoonish corporate villains.

The cast is thoroughly excellent (although Jimmy Smits is the weak link on singing and dancing). Gregory Diaz IV and Corey Hawkins are the standouts.

The best acting performance is by – of all people – Marc Anthony – who perfectly captures the dead eyes of Sonny’s troubled, hope-exhausted father. I had forgotten that, 1990-2004, Anthony acted in some pretty good movies: Big Night, Bringing Out the Dead, Man on Fire.

Director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) is a Silicon Valley native, son of the founder of Chef Chu’s, the beloved institution in Los Altos. Chu was a film school wunderkind and was signed to direct films right out of USC.

Chu is a master of filming dance. He has become one of the greatest directors of dance in cinema – and deserves to be ranked with the likes of Stanley Donen, Mark Sandrich, Busby Berkeley and Bob Fosse. I’m not gushing here – there;s no doubt that the guy has the chops.

The dancing in In the Heights is spectacular. The critic Jason Gorber tweeted that he was watching In the Heights a second time and focusing on the moves of the background dancers. If you do that, you will be able to confirm that the dancer to the right of Sonny in the swimming pool is indeed double-jointed.

Chu fills the frame with detailed content – and often with what seems like hundreds of dancers. See In the Heights on the biggest screen you can; The Wife and I watched it on a 65-inch television, which worked well, but a theater would have been even better.

In the Heights is in theaters and streaming on HBO Max through July 11.