For love of community
Lin-Manuel Miranda tells Jesenia de Moya Correa his new musical In the Heights is a love letter to a vibrant neighbourhood.
There were two long waits that had to be endured before Lin-Manuel Miranda and playwright Quiara Alegria Hudes could bring their Tony-winning musical In the Heights to the screen.
The movie’s release was delayed by a year by the pandemic. And, as Miranda notes, it’s been half-a-century since the last blockbuster movie musical about Latinos in the. (Steven Spielberg’s remake of 1961’s West Side Story is due in cinemas in December.)
In the Heights, directed by
Jon M Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) is based on the 2008 Tonywinning musical, with music and lyrics by Miranda and a book by Hudes, who is also the movie’s screenwriter.
Its story takes place in the predominantly Dominican neighbourhood of Washington Heights in New York City, over three very hot summer days.
Usnavi, a bodega owner played by Anthony Ramos, finds himself in a life-changing moment, with mixed feelings about closing the store and returning to the Dominican Republic after inheriting a fortune from the neighbourhood’s grandmother figure.
Miranda, who co-produced the film, said his own life journey is inseparable from In the Heights, which includes childhood memories and family experiences from growing up in Washington Heights in the 1980s.
The film is a love letter to the vibrant neighbourhood’s essence and sense of belonging, where people lean into each other while dreaming big and struggling with gentrification and environmental racism.
Miranda said he sees his own small role, as the neighbourhood piraguero, as ‘‘a love letter to my abuelo [grandfather] Wisin’’, who died shortly after In the Heights opened on Broadway. ‘‘I’m wearing all his [stuff] in the movie. I’m wearing his e’pejuelo [glasses] around my neck . . . . I’m wearing my socks rolled up. When my wife saw my costume for the piraguero, she said, ‘They let you wear your grandfather’s cargo shorts to the movie?’’’
Compared to his smash hit, Hamilton, he says, Heights is the more personal work, but it’s also ‘‘a giant reminder that we are the next American story and we all come from everywhere’’.
Its pandemic delay only makes the film’s arrival more poignant.
‘‘I feel really good about the movie coming out now,’’ Hudes said. ‘‘I just hugged my mother safely for the first time in over a year. I’m not alone, and that year, good God, that comes at a cost. It was a heartbreak for her not to hug her grandkids safely.
‘‘In this movie, people are gathering at the abuela’s [grandmother’s] house, playing chalupa, playing bingo. They’re gathering in the back alley to dance on the hottest day because the ACs are broken down, they’re in the community pool, and having a dance party at the dance club.
‘‘It will remind us what it’s like – because I honestly believe we’ve forgotten – to be together in a space with your neighbours, with your friends.’’
The screen adaptation of In the Heights is nearly two-anda-half hours long, with 24 songs.
It’s a highly energetic film from beginning to end, with little details that emphasise the film-makers’ intention to design a production for Latino audiences that would highlight the things that bring them joy: the fireworks at night, the hand embroideries and the graffiti street art everywhere.
Mexican singer and actress Melissa Barrera plays Vanessa, a hairdresser (and Usnavi’s sweetheart) who dreams of leaving the changing barrio to become a fashion designer and live downtown.
She said many will see themselves reflected in Vanessa for her ambition and desire to make her dreams come true.
‘‘I left my hometown of Monterrey to go to college,
’cause I wanted to do musical theatre and be on Broadway,’’ she said.
‘‘But, every time I go back to visit my mom and my sisters,
I’m like: This is home, this is me, this is what gave me all the inspiration and material that I needed to build the dreams in my head.’’
Although Washington
Heights is a more US-born and Latinx-mixed neighbourhood these days, In the Heights focuses on the experiences of firstgeneration immigrants as a way to encapsulate Latinos’ unique, but relatable experience in the United States, Miranda said.
He said In the Heights offers just a slice of the diverse Latino experience, since no production can encompass the full array of stories. He said the production celebrates the bond that exists within all these communities.
‘‘There’re millions more stories where that came from, millions of specificities that we may not capture – and that is OK,’’ he said. ‘‘The goal is that the next Latino musical doesn’t come out in f...ing 50 years.’’
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‘[Heights ] is a giant reminder that we are the next American story and we all come from everywhere.’ LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA
After advance screenings in select cinemas this and next weekend, In the Heights opens nationwide on June 24.