In the Heights

Before the worshipped musical ‘Hamilton’ catapulted him to international fame, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony Award-winning hip-hop celebration of the cultural diversity of his neighbourhood, ‘In the Heights’, was the talk of Broadway. The predominantly Dominican barrio, just 20 minutes uptown from the theatre district, was also home to immigrants from Puerto Rico and Cuba, and Jon M. Chu’s (‘Crazy Rich Asians’) scintillating translation of Miranda’s theatre piece celebrates these rich cultures through ecstatic music and dance. This is joyful, eye-popping, and cinematically rich entertainment—in other words, it’s exactly the tonic we all need right now.

‘Magical and euphoric… “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…’—David Ehrlich, IndieWire