IN THE HEIGHTS: FILM REVIEW

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jon Chu’s In the Heights portrays the beauty of celebration and unity that comes from shared struggles. The long-awaited musical makes viewers want to dance, laugh, and cry as it captures the intricacies of Latin American life. However, its shortcomings are not few and far between, as the film neglects to represent the community it seeks to uplift to many degrees. Despite this, In the Heights is still one of the best representations of the diverse experiences within the Latinx community and portrays a colorful snapshot of what it means to be part of the Latin American diaspora.

In the Heights is set in Washington Heights, and follows the story of bodega owner Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) as he struggles with wanting to elevate his community and his desire to return to his home country. Even though Usnavi is the narrator and principal actor, the film follows the stories of many different community members of Washington Heights and explores a wide variety of experiences, from the struggles of owning a small business in a rapidly gentrifying community, to the difficulties faced by minority students who attend elite universities, to the exclusion and hopelessness that comes from being an undocumented citizen. Most any person could find a story that they can relate to and feel solidarity with, but rather than solely focusing on the struggle, In the Heights focuses on the celebration.

The music mixes flavors of music from all over Latin America to create a wide-ranging mix of memorable hits that make the movie shine. Songs pull influences across popular Latin-American musical styles, from reggaeton in “96,000,” to rhythms of salsa, merengue, and samba in “The Club,” and “Carnaval del Barrio.” Even the style of old boleros is included as characters sing and dance together at Nina’s homecoming party. In a sense, the use of rap and hip-hop in these traditional styles of Latin music helps encapsulate the cultural exchange that immigrants and first-generation Latinos undergo as they mix the cultural elements of their home countries with those of the United States.

Not to be forgotten is the Spanglish inherent through all the film, which adds a dimension of relatability and expands the production to be able to explore the way meaning is made. The sung portion of “Alabanza” is entirely in Spanish, which contributes to the sense of sacredness and unity present in the character of Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz,) an elder in the community. Rhymes break language barriers, and while some lines that are in Spanish get translated into English, others that communicate specific emotions such as “No me digas” remain in Spanish throughout the entire movie. The pride in “Carnaval del Barrio” is felt when Piragua Man (Lin-Manuel Miranda) triumphantly sings exclusively in Spanish about raising the flag for the country he loves. The embrace of the flexibility and value of bilingualism is one of the most entertaining portions of the film and helps to illustrate the extent to which In the Heights succeeds at portraying the unique culture of Latin Americans.

However, the film’s setting in Washington Heights, a majority Afro-Dominican neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, is the basis of most criticisms of the film. Rather than choosing any random or fictional space, Miranda consciously chose to highlight this Afro-Latinx community and also chose to cast almost exclusively light-skinned actors to portray the community members. While there is some level of visible diversity in the background dancers, there is a noticeable lack of dark-skinned leads. The only main character who is dark-skinned is Benny (Corey Hawkins), and he’s hinted at as being from Jamaica rather than a Latin American country like the other leads. While the representation of non-Spanish speaking Caribbean islands was important in its own way, the decision to make him the only lead that isn’t Latinx speaks just as much about Afro-Latinx erasure than the decision to not include any other dark-skinned actors. When Afro-Latinx community members have to fight to be recognized as Latinx by a community who would rather pretend no one in their community is Black, the creators of this movie made their ideas about the existence of the Afro-Latinx community loud and clear when they chose to not include any dark-skinned members. While some of the main actors such as Nina Rosaria (Ariana Greenblatt) and Cuca (Dascha Polanco) are Afro-Latinx, it feels as though in the casting process the creators of this movie sought to choose Afro-Latinx actors who could obscure the “Afro” section of their identity as much as possible. When so few roles exist for Afro-Latinx people in general, Afro-Latinx actresses such as Gina Torres are pushed solely into African-American characters because they aren’t seen as capable of playing Latinx characters. In the Heights could have and should have taken advantage of a rare opportunity to showcase the diversity of the Latinx community, rather than continuing to pretend that we exist on a gradient of white to light brown.

While In the Heights dropped the ball in regards to accurately portraying a specific community, it served as a triumphant celebration of Latin American culture and tenacity in the face of seemingly endless struggles and serves as a poignant reminder of the beautiful culture from Latin American countries that live in every immigrant, first-generation, and second-generation community member in the United States.