MOVIES

MOVIES / MUSIC Sunny In the Heights succeeds despite its storyline

by Radheyan Simonpillai

MOVIE REVIEW

IN THE HEIGHTS

Starring Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera. 143 minutes. Available on Friday, June 11, on digital and VOD services.

d IN THE HEIGHTS is so joyous, vibrant, and visually wondrous that it mostly gets away with having next to no plot.

The film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s breakout musical, In the Heights, is a loving bachata and hip-hop swan song to the Latinx community in New York City’s Washington Heights, who are largely Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. The movie is overloaded with a winning cast and knockout musical numbers, all celebrating the culture in a community feeling the strain of gentrification. A win for some of these characters is their ability to find themselves in the exact same place, from beginning to end, which is also what makes the movie so dramatically inert.

The main conflicts involve characters watching clocks or calendars, wondering how much longer they’ll continue living or working in the neighbourhood, which can be rather trying when the movie itself is two-and-a-half hours long. At least Broadway has intermissions. Melissa Barrera’s Vanessa doesn’t know whether she can or should get an apartment downtown. Singer Leslie Grace’s Nina has to decide whether she should stay in Stanford or move back to Washington Heights. These people and others orbit Anthony Ramos’s Usnavi (the role Miranda played on-stage). He runs the corner bodega but plans to pack it in and realize his lifelong dream of moving back to the Dominican Republic and setting up shop on the beach.

Their individual dilemmas stretch things to the limit, but there are enough personalities in the mix to keep it involving. Chief among them are Ramos and Barrera. The two magnetic leads have a chemistry that draw us in and keep us invested in what’s between Usnavi and Vanessa—whether its sexual tension or the subway stops and airports after they make their moves.

Corey Hawkins is a cheerful blast of energy with excellent flows as Usnavi’s best friend and Nina’s old boyfriend. As Nina, Grace is a bit too poised. In an easily overlooked role, Jimmy Smits as Nina’s warm, loving but overbearing father is astonishing. But even the slow moments or the numbers that don’t quite get your blood flowing have something to catch your eye. Jon M. Chu, the director who set the Step Up franchise on the right path with its second installment, doesn’t slouch when it comes to making the movie stand out from the stage. And it often feels like In the Heights is about to bust loose from the screen.

Chu amplifies every moment, big and small, tossing around animations and special effects—like a maintenance hole that spins like a turntable—with incredibly choreographed dances and numerous setups. Some numbers are bigger and better than others: namely, the pool-party eruption of “96,000”, the rousing, comic, and melancholic celebration in “Carnaval del Barrio”, and the jawdropping table setter, “In the Heights”.

The movie is too long, to be certain. But we’ll be playing our fave numbers on a loop all summer. g

Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera show off their chemistry—and their moves—in New York City’s Washington Heights in the film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s breakout musical.

Linda Lindas send a message on multiple fronts

by Mike Usinger

At its purest and most undiluted, punk rock is all about channelling legitimate rage and unbridled anger. Which is to say that Green Day and the Offspring obviously missed the memo.

The Linda Lindas from Los Angeles, on the other hand, clearly know their history.

The group is made up of four young women. And by that, we’re talking really young: drummer Mila is 10 years old, with her bandmates Eloise, Lucia, and Bela ranging from age 13 to 16. But proving that age is just a number, the Linda Lindas have already built an impressive résumé, playing pre-pandemic shows with Bikini Kill, Best Coast, and legit L.A. punk icon Alice Bag.

But past accomplishments isn’t why we’re here today. Last week the Los Angeles based upstarts—who describe themselves as “a half Asian/half Latinx band featuring ‘two sisters, a cousin and their close friend’”—found themselves playing the Los Angeles Public Library as part of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

There’s an easy way to describe the band’s set: Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Covers included The Muffs’ “Big Mouth” and Bikini Kill’s essential “Rebel Girl”. But it was an original that has set the Internet on fire. And attracted raving accolades from everyone from Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello to Paramore’s Hayley Williams.

The song is called “Racist, Sexist Boy” and it sounds like Pretty on the Inside–era Hole in a bloody no-holds-barred cage match with L7 and Tribe 8. Which is to say part scorched earth punk and part scarily feral grunge.

While the title pretty much says everything you need to know, Mila nonetheless added a bit of additional background during the Linda Lindas library set.

“A little while before we went into lockdown, a boy came up to me in my class and said that his dad told him to stay away from Chinese people,” Mila noted before the song. “After I told him that I was Chinese, he backed away from me. Eloise and I wrote this song based on that experience.”

Before this whole lockdown business, a popular narrative was that rock—punk or otherwise—was finally, and officially, dead. Against all odds, it somehow just got off the mat. Again.

Duck and fucking cover. And thank the Linda Lindas for the greatest thing you’ll see this month. g

The Linda Lindas ignored repeated requests from the L.A. Public Library librarian to “Shush.”