The camera (wielded by the cinematographer Alice Brooks) can stroll past the bodega aisles, scan the wares on display and clock every customer who drops in for a cafe con leché or a lottery ticket.
The movie, whatever it loses in the translation to the screen, has some obvious atmospheric advantages.
At nearly two-and-a-half hours and with a terrific ensemble of actors singing, rapping, dancing and practically bursting out of the frame, “In the Heights” is a brash and invigorating entertainment, a movie of tender, delicate moments that nonetheless revels unabashedly in its own size and scale. To call this movie assertive would be an understatement to describe it as small would be a lie. Chu’s jubilant new screen adaptation of the Tony-winning Lin-Manuel Miranda musical, partakes of Claudia’s hard-earned wisdom and offers itself to the audience in the same hopeful, self-affirming spirit. Reminiscing about the beautiful gloves Nina’s late mother used to wear, concealing hands that were cracked from hours spent cleaning other people’s homes, Claudia says, “We had to assert our dignity in small ways … little details that tell the world we are not invisible.” Nina Rosario (Leslie Grace), back home after a rough freshman year at Stanford, describes her sense of loneliness and alienation at a campus devoid of her usual community - something Claudia, who immigrated to New York from Cuba in 1943, knows a thing or two about. In a quietly moving interlude from “In the Heights,” Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz), the beloved matriarch of a Washington Heights barrio, has a heart-to-heart with one of her many surrogate grandchildren. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials. The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic.
0 kommentar(er)
