a review of 身在高地

that opening was 🔥🔥🔥. abuela claudia's number was 💔😭. you could feel the love everybody brought in every frame. just a deeply pleasant experience. Anthony Ramos is a star.  but ok look, i don't like musicals. and a Broadway show adapted to a feature length film was always going to suffer somewhere. and as a film it just didnt work for me.  i had a lot of issues with it. the story doesn't work. the dramatic elements don't work. as soon as there's a proper emotional moment or character development--WHOOP HEY DONT WORRY ABOUT THAT HERE'S ANOTHER MUSICAL NUMBER. it also rivals Return of the King in "how many endings could this possibly have?" levels of wrapup.  and this without getting into the whole "lin manuel directly contributed to a neo-colonial push in Puerto Rico" and also the whole "a musical about washington heights that is hip hop centered stars majority light skin and white passing actors with POC as dancers and set dressing" and.... well. i do appreciate that a big, bombastic latino extravaganza has this much mainstream support behind it. i see the glowing reviews and i smile. i see the headlines of people buying up screens and i smile.  I didnt like In The Heights. But i love what it might represent. 🇵🇷