movie review of in the heights

In the Heights

It’s here! Jubilant, unapologetically massive, and bursting with a cozy, melancholic sense of communal belonging, “In The Heights” is the biggest-screen-you-can-find Hollywood event that we the movie lovers have been craving since the early days of the pandemic, when the health crisis cut off one of our most cherished public lifelines. A dazzling New York movie that honors the diverse Latinx communities of Upper Manhattan like its boisterous source—the multi-award-winning stage musical that put Lin-Manuel Miranda on the showbiz map before his fame exploded with “ Hamilton ”—this exuberant screen adaptation (with at least one delightful “Hamilton” Easter Egg) is ready to welcome you back into your neighborhood cinema with open arms, daring to light up that dark room in ways much bigger and brighter than you might remember.

Yes, it’s simply an overwhelming experience, to float weightlessly during the nearly 145-minute running time of “In The Heights.” And don’t let that number scare you off—the whole thing passes breezily like a New York minute, dancing its way through one typically humid and sweaty summer of the urban island’s Washington Heights, pitched on the brink of a soul-killing blackout. Sitting on a picturesque tropical beach and telling his tale to a company of adorable kids early on in the film (a smart, recurring narrative anchor that resolves to a satisfying conclusion), “The streets were made of music,” says the movie’s heart and soul Usnavi de la Vega. Here, he is played by your new favorite leading man Anthony Ramos , who revives Miranda’s Broadway role in an irresistibly likable, instantly star-making performance after holding a number of memorable parts in the likes of “ Monsters and Men ,” “ White Girl ,” and “A Star is Born.”

It’s shrewd of the chief creative helmers, a trio consisting of virtuoso director Jon M. Chu , deft screenwriter Quiara Alegría Hudes (who also wrote the book for the stage musical and braids a number of well-constructed changes into this version) and of course, peerless creator Lin-Manuel Miranda (charismatically playing a street vendor selling icy fruity piraguas here), to emphasize the melodic nature of the barrio right at the start. This might sound like an obvious proposition for a production about a locale’s complex and colorful rhythms that fuse rap, hip-hop, and various Latin sounds like salsa and merengue, with traditional musical theater. But it’s also one that grants Chu with the spot-on set-up to declare, “Let me show you how!” and to flaunt the visual proof throughout with disarming disposition and jaw-dropping craft that coddles tight apartments, sunbaked alleys, scenic overlooks, fire-escapes and one gigantic public pool. Indeed, as a director who proved his kinetic muscles with the sophisticated romantic comedy “ Crazy Rich Asians ” (which is as close to a sense of choreographed musicality as a non-musical film can get) and is no stranger to dance in film, mostly thanks to his entries in the “Step Up” franchise, Chu might just convert even the fiercest skeptics of musicals that question the plausibility of a bunch of people launching into a random song-and-dance number.

To take it a step further, Chu grandly demonstrates that both the tenderness and the ideological vastness of “In The Heights” were always meant for the big screen in a way, rather than the confines of a physical stage. Your mind surrenders to Chu’s logic and vision entirely, believing that it does make all the sense in the world when Usnavi, a lovable immigrant orphan from the Dominican Republic with immediate dreams of returning to the island he considers a paradise, spins a manhole cover like a turntable, snaps a gate latch into place in a tempo matched by a splashy hose, and reflectively watches from inside his bodega as his entire neighborhood sings and dances, greeting a brand-new day outside of his window. And this is only the opening number, a spirited introduction to an array of personalities that almost brought this Turkish immigrant critic (who called the geographically and culturally adjacent, similarly vibrant Hamilton Heights home for over a decade) to her feet, alongside the loud but calming swooshes of fire hydrants.

That same introduction familiarizes us with the concept of a sueñito , a little dream, that everyone with a major part in “In The Heights” dearly holds. For the bodega owner Usnavi, the dream is not only to return to the happy Dominican Republic of his childhood, but also, to finally ask the intimidating Vanessa out on a date. Played with such seductive verve by Melissa Barrera , the aspiring fashion designer Vanessa on the other hand dreams of leaving her dead-end beauty salon job working alongside the head-strong, mischievously gossipy ladies Daniela ( Daphne Rubin-Vega ), Carla ( Stephanie Beatriz ) and Cuca ( Dascha Polanco ), and moving downtown to pursue her passion career. There’s also the smart college student Nina Rosario (an immensely powerful Leslie Grace ), who yearns to reinstate her identity as a Latina on the heels of her dispiriting year at the white-dominant Stanford. Her plans to drop out of college disappoint Kevin ( Jimmy Smits ), her sacrificing father with high expectations of her, and surprise Benny ( Corey Hawkins , impossibly charming), a strong-willed, energetic dispatcher working at Kevin’s limo company. (You guessed it: he and Nina are in love.) Also in the mix, with a markedly more significant part than in the musical, is Usnavi’s cousin Sonny ( Gregory Diaz IV , effortlessly loveable), the kind of undocumented Dreamer unwelcome in the Trumpian trenches of the country. (Fans of the original musical will be quick to identify the instance in which Trump’s name gets swapped with Tiger Woods. “When I wrote it, he was an avatar for the Monopoly man. Then when time moves on and he becomes the stain on American democracy, you change the lyric,” Miranda recently said to Variety .)

These characters collectively paint a big, beautiful canvas that the Heights matriarch Abuela Claudia ( Olga Merediz , absolutely heartrending in a revival of her famed stage role) seems to have taken under her wings since forever. Foreshadowing one of the movie’s most affecting and inspired sequences involving wistful vintage subway cars and her past as a hardworking immigrant, “Paciencia y Fe” (patience and faith) Abuela optimistically says as she waves her newly bought lottery ticket in the air. We soon learn that investing in the lottery is a widely shared routine in her streets—once Usnavi is informed of a winning ticket sold at his deli, the musical’s earth-shattering centerpiece “96,000” arrives. We try to keep up as hundreds of extras covet the big bad $96K prize, a hardly life-saving sum, but enough to make a fresh, life-changing start. Shot in the Highbridge Pool, this miraculous number (dexterously choreographed by Christopher Scott like the rest) of synchronized swimming and harmonic dancing in the tradition of Busby Berkeley brings the entire cast together with gusto, confidently reminding the audience the kind of movie that they are watching—a big motion picture that absolutely refuses to scale down its emotional scope and visual splendor.

It’s thanks to that self-assured rejection to downsize on the outside and inside that the entirety of “In The Heights” works, both as an intimate ode to a tightknit community made up of individuals stuck in an in-between (a visceral state of being that will be deeply familiar to fellow immigrants), and a hard-hitting political statement that has something to say about all the rampant systemic injustices ingrained in a maddeningly white-normative society, from gentrification to casual racism. In unison, Chu’s direction, Miranda’s music and lyrics, and Hudes’ script amplify an idea voiced by Abuela—about asserting one’s dignity in small ways—and memorialize that notion of self-worth by seeing all the details that add up to it. Thankfully, it’s evident that this ambition is shared by the entire cast (all exceptional singers, dancers and performers), Alice Brooks ’ dreamy cinematography, Myron Kerstein ’s snappy editing as well as production designer Nelson Coates and costumer Mitchell Travers , with the duo highlighting the diverse shapes and forms of a unique slice of Manhattan with dizzying imagination.

Survey the proud faces that shout “HEY!” during “Carnaval del Barrio,” another one of the film’s buoyantly inviting songs; hum along, perhaps quietly weep, when silky fabrics spill out of buildings like tears as Vanessa aches for a better future; inspect the lively, alluring moves of the hair parlor ladies as they vibrate to “No Me Diga” and even take notice of Nina’s hair that quickly transforms from straight to beautifully unruly and curly, and you will be that much closer to grasping the kind of character “In The Heights” is out to seize inside a world many choose to deem invisible. A celebration of the idea of home, both self-made and born and carried in one’s soul, “We are here,” this movie affirms with cinematic majesty. What a magnificent sight to behold.

“In the Heights” will be available on HBO Max and in theaters starting June 10.

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

Anthony Ramos as Usnavi de la Vega
Leslie Grace as Nina Rosario
Corey Hawkins as Benny
Melissa Barrera as Vanessa
Olga Merediz as Abuela Claudia
Jimmy Smits as Kevin Rosario
Lin-Manuel Miranda as Piragüero
Daphne Rubin-Vega as Daniela
Stephanie Beatriz as Carla
Gregory Diaz IV as Sonny
Dascha Polanco as Cuca
Marc Anthony as Gapo

Cinematographer

Alice Brooks

Writer (based on the musical stage play, concept by)

Lin-Manuel Miranda

Composer (songs)

Myron Kerstein

Writer (based on the musical stage play, book by)

Quiara Alegría Hudes

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‘In the Heights’ Review: In Dreams Begin Responsibilities

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical comes to the screen as an exuberant and heartfelt party, directed by Jon M. Chu and starring Anthony Ramos.

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‘In the Heights’ | Anatomy of a Scene

Jon m. chu narrates a sequence from his film featuring anthony ramos..

Hey this is Jon M. Chu, the director of “In the Heights.” So this is the amazing Anthony Ramos, who plays Usnavi, the main storyteller in our movie. And he’s just said the streets are made of music. So we had to get all these people to go to the beat. We had this amazing clave beat that was playing and so all the background people had to go to that beat. [LAUGHING] [RECORD SQUEAK] That manhole cover doesn’t actually move. He just did that with his feet and our VFX team created an amazing spinning turntable there. This is a real bodega that we painted that mural on and aged all the ads on there for this. And then this is Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the show, who’s playing Piragua Guy. And you can see that piragua cart. He often knocked it over and would fall everywhere. And we’d all have to clean it up. It was not easy to maneuver. And here we are in the bodega. This is an amazing set that we built. We actually built the sidewalk outside the door so that we could make transitions. But here we really wanted to show off that map of the Dominican Republic, which is pieces of glass, bottles, it has keys all in there. And because of the set, we can take out the wall. So here we’re behind the wall actually here. All the food is real, so it was starting to smell over time. Actors would steal food and eat treats. By the end, I would say half those shelves were gone, because we’d just grab cookies. “Ooh!” “Abuela, my fridge broke. I got cafe, but no con leche.” “Ay, dios!” I love the set, because it just looks like a real place. It’s not too clean. There’s a messy beauty to it. Olga Meredith, who plays Abuela Claudia, is amazing. And we knew we would not recast her. She had to be in this movie. “—Abuela, she’s not really—” That moment with Anthony looking at the camera, not a lot of actors can really look at us and invite us in, like we’re one of his homies. But he had that amazing ability. “Well, you must take the A train even farther than Harlem—” We had iPad choreography with your fingers. Actually, it took a long time to figure out how would we do choreography with your fingers on your iPad. It’s more difficult than it seems. “—somebody bought Ortega’s, our neighbors started packing up and picking up. And ever since the rents went up. It’s gotten mad expensive, but we live with just enough.” “In the Heights—” The amount of time we had to put the blanket over the camera and not hurt the lens was tricky. I love this. We call this our community chorus, people who are dancers, and people you see throughout the movie. And I love seeing a neighborhood that works hard, takes care of their families, take care of each other, has dreams and otherwise. And that’s our opening for “In the Heights.”

By A.O. Scott

“ In the Heights ” begins with a man — Usnavi, played by Anthony Ramos — telling a story to a group of children. They are gathered on the patio of a bar on a palm-fringed, sun-kissed beach in the Dominican Republic. The bar is called El Sueñito, or the Little Dream, and the name is at once a clue, a spoiler and the key to the themes of this exuberant and heartfelt musical.

A dream can be a fantasy or a goal, an escape or an aspiration, a rejection of the way things are or an affirmation of what could be. “ In the Heights ,” adapted from Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Tony-winning Broadway show , embraces all of these meanings. After more than a year of desultory streaming, anemic entertainment and panicky doomscrolling, it’s a dream come true.

The director, Jon M. Chu ( “Crazy Rich Asians” ), draws on the anti-realist traditions of Hollywood song-and-dance spectacle to vault the characters (and the audience) into exalted realms of feeling and magic. Two lovers step off a tenement fire escape and pirouette up and down the walls of the building in a sweet and thrilling defiance of gravity. A public swimming pool turns into a Busby Berkeley kaleidoscope of kineticism and color. The wigs on a beauty salon shelf bounce along to the beat of a big production number.

At the same time, this multistranded, intergenerational story about family, community and upward mobility is rooted in the real-world soil of hard work and sacrifice. The modest dreams of Usnavi and his neighbors and friends are reflections of a very big dream — the American one, which the film celebrates without irony even as it takes note of certain contradictions.

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In the Heights Reviews

Both Jon M. Chu and Miranda are first-generation Americans, therefore, they had several points in common to think together about transposition, through rootlessness and otherness that are two of the main themes of the musical.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 16, 2024

In the Heights celebrates that the people in our lives should be the most important part of any dream. We can achieve more with each other than without.

Full Review | Jul 3, 2024

While In the Heights deserves kudos for depicting authentic immigrant characters in an urban setting, its discomfort with exploring the natural consequences of their actions and demand for a happy ending undercut the film’s authenticity.

Full Review | Jun 12, 2024

With the vibrant soundtrack, gorgeous production and some of the best numbers in a long time such as '96,000' and 'Benny's Dispatch', there's no doubt that In The Heights makes my top five.

Full Review | Mar 1, 2024

Full of huge musical numbers and a tremendous amount of heart, In The Heights is a spectacle deserving of a cinema trip. However, the pacing issues take away a noticeable amount of enjoyment.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 6, 2023

Soars high, sweeps you off your feet, & swells your eyes with tears. It’s filled with excitement, smiles, laughs, & will make you an emotional mess.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

Though the film is not devoid of conflict, I look back on it primarily with a sense of joy and celebration.

Full Review | May 1, 2023

If you enjoyed Hamilton and you're the type of person who finds themself bopping along to tunes, you'll probably get a kick out of In The Heights -- and yes, there's a Lin Manuel Miranda cameo.

Full Review | Mar 31, 2023

In the Heights is a feel-good movie of the summer.

Full Review | Sep 28, 2022

In the Heights is an emotionally resonant epic that masterfully reinvigorates the musical genre with its electrifying ensemble and captivating choreography.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 1, 2022

The dialogue has its moments but it's the exuberant, hyper-energetic dance numbers that leave the strongest impression.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2022

Alongside his terrific DP Alice Brooks, Chu captures the effervescent spirit of a changing Washington Heights and give us a taste of the music, personality, and culture that is so deeply a part of its identity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 17, 2022

Intimacy is established via product placement, as flirting happens with Tide-To-Go pens. If only they could be used to erase all the film’s missteps?

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 9, 2022

In the Heights recaptures the old Hollywood magic of cinematic musicals.

Full Review | May 30, 2022

Comes closer than any film in recent memory to recapturing the elusive charm that made the musical genre the pinnacle of cinematic excellence for so many decades.

Full Review | May 20, 2022

A kaleidoscopic blast of cinematic energy that is as perfect a "welcome back to cinemas" as Hollywood could have given us.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | May 10, 2022

Rich with Latinx pride, its a joyful cinematic experience full of love, music, and celebration of community and life. The film honors our heritage in a way that would make our Abuelos and Abuelas proud.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 22, 2022

While the characters, their backstories and motivations may be thinly drawn, everything about them comes alive once the yapping stops and the songs begin.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 25, 2022

It is a love letter to those that doubt their worth and belonging in spaces that often are denied to them. It holds a mirror to those that feel invisible in the eye of representation and celebrates them loud and proud.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10 | Mar 7, 2022

Featuring Miranda in a small but enjoyable supporting role, Hamilton fandom will certainly be the driving force for people going to see In The Heights. However, incredible storytelling with be the reason they will want to watch it again.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 2, 2022

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'In The Heights' Is A Spirited, Socially Undistanced, Summer Crowd Pleaser

Justin Chang

Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera play Usnavi and Vanessa in the film In the Heights. Warner Bros. hide caption

Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera play Usnavi and Vanessa in the film In the Heights.

In the Heights couldn't be more perfectly timed. For one thing, summer movies don't get much more summery than this one, which takes place during a record-breaking New York heat wave. For another, this vibrant screen adaptation of the Lin-Manuel Miranda stage musical captures something we've largely gone without over the past year: a joyous sense of togetherness.

This is the most socially undistanced movie I've seen in months. The action unfolds in crowded store aisles and gossip-filled beauty salons where everyone knows everyone. The musical numbers, which blend hip-hop, Latin pop, salsa and other styles, frequently spill out into the surrounding neighborhood. The actors become dancers in an electrifying street ballet.

Watch The First Full Trailer For Lin-Manuel Miranda's 'In The Heights' Film

A lot of this is packed into the movie's transporting opening sequence, which brings us into this pan-Latino barrio in Washington Heights. Miranda pops up in a small role as a vendor, selling shaved ice out of a pushcart, but our real guide to this Upper Manhattan neighborhood is Usnavi de la Vega, played by a terrific Anthony Ramos.

Usnavi owns a popular corner bodega that's especially prized for its café con leche. As he raps about the challenges of running his scrappy little business in a place that's rapidly being gentrified, he's joined by a chorus of voices from the neighborhood singing about their own struggles to get by.

As much as he loves Washington Heights and the people who live there, Usnavi longs to return to the beaches of the Dominican Republic where he grew up. He hopes his teenage cousin Sonny, played by Gregory Diaz IV, might come with him, but Sonny, an undocumented immigrant, dreams of becoming a U.S. citizen in a subplot that ties into recent headlines. One of the more poignant insights of In the Heights is that everyone has a different concept of home.

Music Interviews

Anthony ramos pays homage to his past on 'the good & the bad'.

Usnavi has a long-standing crush on Vanessa, played by an excellent Melissa Barrera, who's hoping to move downtown and become a fashion designer. Leslie Grace plays their friend Nina, an academic superstar who's just had a rough year at Stanford, where she feels she doesn't belong. But her father, Kevin — a nice turn by Jimmy Smits — wants Nina to stick with it: If she can't get out of the Heights and succeed, he thinks, what hope is there for anyone else?

Kevin, who immigrated to New York from Puerto Rico decades ago, runs a cab company that's one of the few remaining Latino-owned businesses in the area. As rents go up and people and businesses are forced out, the community gets a shot of excitement when Usnavi finds out that someone bought a winning lottery ticket for a $96,000 jackpot from his bodega.

Lin-Manuel Miranda On Disney, Mixtapes And Why He Won't Try To Top 'Hamilton'

Movie Interviews

'the past isn't done with us,' says 'hamilton' creator lin-manuel miranda.

I saw In the Heights onstage in Los Angeles back in 2010, and while the screenwriter Quiara Alegría Hudes has made some smart tweaks and trims to her original book for the musical, some of the material's basic weaknesses persist here. The various romantic and aspirational subplots are engrossing enough, but feel thinly stretched at more than two hours. Washington Heights looks more vivid and immediate on-screen than it did onstage, but in some ways the simplistic, relentlessly upbeat nature of the story seems all the more glaring.

Still, there's nothing wrong with staying upbeat right now, and the director Jon M. Chu is very much up to the task. Chu previously directed Crazy Rich Asians , and he's good at squeezing resonant ideas about generational conflict and cultural confusion into a deft, crowd-pleasing package. It's worth noting that Chu also made two entries in the Step Up dance-movie franchise, and while I sometimes wish he would slow down the editing and let the musical numbers breathe more, the sheer dynamism of his filmmaking is pretty hard to resist.

In the Heights may not be a great movie, but it's a pretty great moviegoing experience. There are lovely moments here, like when Benny and Nina do a surreal, gravity-defying dance along the side of an apartment building. There are also exhilarating ones, like when the neighborhood, reeling from a heat-wave-triggered blackout, pulls together to throw the mother of all block parties.

And there's a knockout solo from Abuela Claudia, the neighborhood's adopted grandmother, played by Olga Merediz, wonderfully reprising her Tony-nominated role. Claudia's big number is called "Paciencia y Fe," or "Patience and Faith," values she's clung to since she moved from Cuba back in the '40s. She's the living embodiment of this movie's loving and enduring spirit.

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Lin-manuel miranda’s ‘in the heights’: film review.

The musical that put the 'Hamilton' creator on the map gets splashy big-screen treatment from director Jon M. Chu, with an ensemble cast led by Anthony Ramos and Corey Hawkins.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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The title song that opens In the Heights starts quietly with a tentative percussion beat as Anthony Ramos , in a star-making turn as narrator-protagonist Usnavi, eases into the intro’s freestyle rapping while the camera lovingly salutes the slice of Upper Manhattan that provides the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical with its pounding heart. Principal characters and their various domains within the close-knit Latino community are introduced on a warm summer’s day, crawling out of bed, spilling out of their brownstone apartment buildings, hopping on buses and heading to work.

A full ten minutes of this engaging scene-setting unfolds before the frame erupts into an ebullient production number with dancers of all ages, shapes and sizes fanning out all over an entire city block. It’s sheer joy to watch New York shake off its slumber, like an invigorating shower from an open fire hydrant. That alone should make this real-world musical fairy tale a summer crowd-pleaser.

Full credits

Production companies: Warner Bros. Pictures, 5000 Broadway, Barrio Grrrl!, Likely Story, SGS Pictures Productions Distribution: Warner Bros./HBO Max Cast: Anthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, Leslie Grace, Melissa Barrera, Olga Merediz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Gregory Diaz IV, Stephanie Beatriz, Dascha Polanco, Jimmy Smits, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Patrick Page, Noah Catala, Marc Anthony, Christopher Jackson Director: Jon M. Chu Screenwriter: Quiara Alegria Hudes, based on the musical stage play with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, book by Hudes, concept by Miranda Producers: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Quiara Alegria Hudes, Scott Sanders, Anthony Bregman, Mara Jacobs Executive producer: David Nicksay, Kevin McCormick Director of photography: Alice Brooks Production designer: Nelson Coates Costume designer: Mitchell Travers Original songs: Lin-Manuel Miranda Music: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alex Lacamoire, Bill Sherman Editor: Myron Kerstein Choreographer: Christopher Scott Visual effects supervisor: Mark Russell Casting: Bernard Telsey, Tiffany Little Canfield

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‘In the Heights’ Review: A Big, Beautiful Celebration of Heritage and Community

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I wouldn’t be surprised if I keep going back to In the Heights as one of the best films of 2021 because of what it represents. Originally scheduled for summer 2020, the film was delayed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and yet it feels even more immediate because of its emphasis on community and what we owe to each other. After a year of being separated, Jon. M Chu ’s adaptation Lin-Manuel Miranda ’s 2008 Tony-winning Broadway musical feels like a rich experience of a community coming together over a shared heritage intertwined with their individual dreams. In a time where it feels like we’re more separated than ever, not just from those who disagree with us but even our friends and family, In the Heights is a glowing celebration of how even when we forge our own path we’re never alone when we’re supported by our communities. Chu taps into that deep, earnest love of a place and the people that populate it, and then goes wild with musical numbers that make you want to get out of your seat and cheer. If ever there was a movie that demanded people get back to the theater post-pandemic, In the Heights is it.

The film opens with bodega owner Usnavi ( Anthony Ramos ) regaling a group of children with a tale about a land called Washington Heights, and from here, it’s more of an ensemble piece following a group of dreamers. Usnavi dreams of getting back to his father’s homeland of the Dominican Republic and running a bar by the sea. His crush Vanessa ( Melissa Barrera ) works in a nail salon, but dreams of getting away from the barrio so she can study fashion. Meanwhile, Usnavi’s friend Nina ( Leslie Grace ) has just returned from her first semester at Stanford, but now wants to drop out and stay home, much to the chagrin of her hard-working and cash-strapped father Kevin ( Jimmy Smits ), although she also catches the eye of her old flame, Benny ( Corey Hawkins ). These young characters and their friends all have a place in the home of Abuela Claudia ( Olga Merediz ), who doesn’t have children of her own, but has made it a point to look after the people of the neighborhood. With a blackout looming on the horizon on the hottest days of summer, Washington Heights feels like it’s at turning point, not just for its residents, but for the neighborhood as a whole.

If you’re looking for In the Heights to be like Miranda’s massive hit Hamilton , you’ll really only find similarities in the style of music as Miranda uses his wide swath of musical knowledge to create something original and heartfelt. But whereas Hamilton benefits from the driving force of history and a strong central protagonist, In the Heights is a looser affair. While there’s the threat of gentrification, it doesn’t manifest in a single character or situation. The conflict for these characters is internal and relational, and by exploring that conflict In the Heights has its own beautiful personality where Miranda defies the typical young immigrant or first-generation American story.

You can see this clearly in what’s happening with Nina. Nina’s path is clearly laid out for her where her father worked hard and scarified so that his daughter, who also worked hard, could go to an elite university, which would then open new doors for her. But Nina is drawn back to her block and the people within it. She refuses to be placed into a single inspirational narrative, and we see that Kevin’s dream can’t simply be his daughter’s dream. In the Heights is constantly interrogating the notion of what a “better life” means in terms of aspiration, and it keeps coming back to restoration of a community. The vivacity of In the Heights comes not from grasping at a brass ring, but through embrace of the neighborhood and its residents.

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RELATED: New 'In the Heights' Trailer Reveals the Joy and Energy of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Big-Screen Musical Adaptation

The script has also been updated somewhat since its 2008 Broadway run, and while some of the changes are fun and minor (Usnavi making a John Wick reference, for instance), you can also feel the potency when his cousin, friend, and co-worker Sonny says, “They’re kicking out all the dreamers,” a line that would feel corny if you didn’t look at it in its larger context. While Usnavi, Vanessa, and Nina are small-d “dreamers”, Sonny is a Dreamer—a reference to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy which affects people like Sonny who were brought here illegally when they were children but know no other home than America. This film was made in 2019 when there was a very real possibility (and remains a very real possibility depending on who’s in the White House in the future) that Dreamers would be deported, not only denied the American dream, but kicked out of their home. In the Heights isn’t a DACA movie—Sonny’s plotline is one of many—but it emphasizes that community isn’t just something that gives its people strength; it’s also something that can be under siege by those who wish to exploit fear and division.

But In the Heights refuses to take a defensive crouch. Every single musical number explodes off the screen thanks to Chu’s masterful direction. The musical is already a fantastical genre since people don’t burst into song and choreographed dance numbers. Chu treats every number like it’s a showstopper while still giving the scene its own flavor. He’s unafraid to weave in animation or CGI or turn the world on its side if need be. And yet at the same time, Chu is confident enough to add small details that add to the overall flavor of a scene without distraction from the central action. You can see this in the numbers where Christopher Scott ’s excellent choreography is used by background actors to keep the energy pulsing throughout the scene. Chu brings it all together to make you invested in this world and its people.

He’s also helped by a knockout cast that feels like a launching pad for multiple stars. Ramos easily glides into the role that Miranda played in the Broadway production, but he’s also surrounded by a terrific array of rising stars. You can’t help but be allured by Melissa Barrera as Vanessa and her character’s desire to reach her goals while also trying to keep people at a distance. While the love story between Usnavi and Vanessa is good, the chemistry between Hawkins and Grace crackles off the screen, and you can’t help but root for these two young people to get together. And then there’s the older members of the cast with Olga Merediz serving as the beating heart and moral compass of the piece as Abuela Claudia with her stunning solo number.

In the Heights is one of those movies that grabs you from the start, and it never relinquishes the pride of its place. The movie will causally slip between English and Spanish without always giving the audience’s English-only speakers the benefit of subtitles. It makes these decisions not to be exclusionary, but because it has such a strong embrace of the Spanish-speaking people and culture depicted. Chu has a different background, and yet he demonstrates a total understanding of the importance of what Miranda sought to convey with his musical. As a white viewer born in Minnesota and raised in Atlanta, I don’t come from the places depicted in In the Heights , and yet I deeply respect and admire what Chu and Miranda have crafted here and the people they seek to celebrate.

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If I have one issue with In the Heights , it’s that I didn’t get to see it in a packed theater. This is a movie that demands not only a big screen, but a room full of people to share in the musical experience. It looked great on my TV, and I’m sure those who have HDR will appreciate the look of the film should they choose to watch it on HBO Max. But if you’re fully vaccinated by the time the film opens, I can’t recommend a theatrical experience enough. I know that I’ll be going to the loudest theater I can find so that I can lose myself in a magical land called “Washington Heights.”

KEEP READING: 'Wicked' Movie Musical Taps 'In the Heights' Director Jon M. Chu

In the Heights

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In the Heights

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Corey Hawkins, Stephanie Beatriz, Melissa Barrera, Dascha Polanco, Leslie Grace, and Anthony Ramos in In the Heights (2021)

In Washington Heights, a sympathetic New York bodega owner saves every penny every day as he imagines and sings about a better life. In Washington Heights, a sympathetic New York bodega owner saves every penny every day as he imagines and sings about a better life. In Washington Heights, a sympathetic New York bodega owner saves every penny every day as he imagines and sings about a better life.

Quiara Alegría Hudes
Lin-Manuel Miranda
Anthony Ramos
Corey Hawkins
Leslie Grace
542 User reviews
236 Critic reviews
84 Metascore
11 wins & 57 nominations

Top cast 91

Nina Rosario

Abuela Claudia

Kevin Rosario

Graffiti Pete

(as Mateo Gomez)

Pike Phillips

(as Dean Vazquez)
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Trivia The hold music that plays when Kevin is on the phone is a version of King George's melody in Hamilton, another musical by Lin Manuel Miranda.
Goofs Abuela Claudia's "mother's secret recipe" for café con leche calls for "one can of condensed milk." When Usnavi prepares Kevin's coffee, he uses evaporated milk, which would spoil without refrigeration. She suggests condensed milk because it does not spoil if left out in the heat.

Kevin Rosario : [to Nina] Ignore anyone who doubts you.

Crazy credits Before the credits roll, some graffiti art is shown of actress and singer Doreen Montalvo , a member of the original Broadway cast of "In the Heights" who also appeared in the film who passed away in 2021, with the words "Doreen - Para Siempre", a reference to the song she sings in the film and the show.
Connections Featured in AniMat's Crazy Cartoon Cast: Ryan the Daring (2020)
Soundtracks In the Heights Performed by Anthony Ramos , Jimmy Smits , Daphne Rubin-Vega , Stephanie Beatriz , Dascha Polanco , Corey Hawkins , Gregory Diaz IV , Melissa Barrera and Olga Merediz Produced by Alex Lacamoire , Bill Sherman , Lin-Manuel Miranda , Mike Elizondo and Sergio George

User reviews 542

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Jun 11, 2021

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June 11, 2021 (United States)
United States
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En El Barrio
Washington Heights, New York City, New York, USA
Warner Bros.
5000 Broadway Productions
Fifth Season
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$55,000,000 (estimated)
$29,975,167
$11,504,710
Jun 13, 2021
$45,175,167

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Runtime 2 hours 23 minutes
Dolby Atmos
IMAX 6-Track
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‘In the Heights’ Review: Big Screen Version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Other Broadway Hit Is a Dream Come True

David ehrlich.

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So exuberant and full of life that it would probably convince you the movies were back even if they hadn’t gone anywhere, “ 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.

This is the story of a New York City block that’s on the brink of disappearing, and it naturally carries an extra charge now that its medium is as delicate as its message. Then again, the threat of commercialized self-erasure has been cooked into Miranda’s anti-gentrification lament since he wrote the first drafts of it as an undergrad at Wesleyan.

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A full-throated celebration of the diverse Latinx community that’s been the lifeblood of Washington Heights since the white flight of the 1960s, “In the Heights” paved the way for “Hamilton” by transposing hip-hop, salsa, merengue, and other decidedly non-white sounds into a cadence that would appeal to Broadway audiences. The show is steeped in the customs and characters who defined Miranda’s upper-Manhattan neighborhood, but that local flavor has been filtered through the mind of a musical theater nerd whose heart is evenly split between the likes of Big Pun and Jonathan Larson. That isn’t to suggest “In the Heights” was somehow “not Latino enough” for this Jewish critic from 103rd Street or for anyone else, but rather to say that watching it at the Richard Rodgers Theatre could make you wonder if the show was only being staged for the same tourists who get lost on the way to the Cloisters or whatever in the opening number.

That cynicism might naturally be even more pronounced now that Miranda is an overexposed iconoclast whose baseline sincerity invites a certain amount of cringe, and whose personal ode to an under-represented community has been turned into a major summer blockbuster by a non-Latinx filmmaker whose idea of visibility in “Crazy Rich Asians” was making everyone larger than life. That approach isn’t available to Chu here. This may be another story about ridiculously photogenic people, but they exist at street level. They’re bodega clerks and hairdressers. They’re small-business owners who’ve rooted themselves into the hot concrete of Washington Heights so that their children would be free to bloom elsewhere. They’re Cuban-American grandmothers who’ve adopted every stray kid in the neighborhood, and preach a gospel of patience and faith while they wait for a sign from God that they were right to flee La Vibora for the George Washington Bridge — confirmation that will never come. They’re dreamers in every sense of the word, however small those dreams might be.

Chu doesn’t really know how to do small, so he looks for the spectacle inside the stuff of everyday life. As usual, he finds it through movement. This is a portrait about “a people on the move,” and Chu illustrates that idea as literally as possible, not only by channeling it through Christopher Scott’s propulsive choreography but also by physicalizing the inter-generational rhythms of immigrant identity. Even on its static Broadway set — shaken to life every night and twice on Sunday like a snow globe in a heatwave — “In the Heights” was animated by its fevered insistence that home is something people take with them wherever they go. By cracking that snow globe open and watching it spill onto the actual streets of Washington Heights, Chu has created a film that makes you feel like its characters are dreaming with their eyes open.

Here is a musical so magical and assured that even its missteps seem like good ideas. At the very least, Quiara Alegría Hudes — who also wrote the book for the Broadway show — deserves credit for a screenplay that makes bold choices, emphasizes migratory churn even when it means cutting entire characters, and strives to keep up with the times (risky business in a story about how they’re always changing). This “In the Heights” begins with a labored framing device that falls flat even as it helpfully introduces the promise of home as a place that tends to be found somewhere between where you come from and where you hope to go.

Inheriting Miranda’s role with one of the most charismatic and radiantly likeable performances you’ll ever see on a screen of any kind, Anthony Ramos plays Usnavi as a naturalized storyteller with a twinkle in his eye, and we meet him in his element: Sitting on the Dominican beach of his dreams and telling some precocious kids about the special neighborhood that he kept together from behind the register of the bodega that his dad bequeathed to him. This is a lot to handle at the start of a movie where even the best parts demand a certain tolerance for cheesy musical theater tropes, and it grates every time Chu comes back to it.

As anyone who’s familiar with the show might already suspect, things heat up in a hurry as soon as the action heads north to New York and it lights up on Washington Heights (up at the break of day) for 12 minutes of pure cinematic euphoria that almost make up for the 12 months without it. The streets are literally made of music — down to the manhole covers that spin like turntables — as Usnavi heads to work in a sequence that moves with the grace and purpose of someone weaving a community from the thread of a million separate dreams.

Every character who walks through the doors of that bodega is cast to perfection; maybe there “ain’t no Cassiopeia in Washington Heights,” but a new star is born in this movie virtually every other minute. Even the extras seem like they’re about to become famous (especially the piragua guy). After Ramos, top of the list might have to be Melissa Barrera , whose headstrong, ab-forward Vanessa is such a compelling dream girl that it’s hard to believe Usnavi has room for any other sueñitos in his head. He wants to move back to the Dominican Republic, while she only wants to move downtown and join the fashion industry, but the mileage hardly seems to matter for mutual crushes who are heading in opposite directions.

Wherever Usnavi winds up, he won’t be there alone. His little cousin Sonny (a funny Gregory Diaz IV, boasting an impressive flow) will follow him wherever he goes. If Usnavi stays put in the Heights, he can always kick it with his best friend Benny, a handsome taxi dispatcher whom the golden-throated Corey Hawkins plays with such charm and backbone that the movie hits a new altitude every time he’s on screen. It’s a performance so buoyant that it takes a second to clock what’s strange about the sequence where Benny dances up the side of an apartment building with his boss’ daughter (Leslie Grace shines as homesick Stanford student Nina Rosario, ambivalent about her role as the girl who got out, while Jimmy Smits is the movie’s tortured soul as the dad who cherishes Washington Heights because it allowed him to send his baby somewhere else). The most ecstatic stretches of “In the Heights” don’t merely suspend disbelief; they change the gravity of the world around you.

We also meet gossipy salon workers Daniela (“Rent” icon Daphne Rubin-Vega) and Carla (“Brooklyn 99” favorite Stephanie Beatriz), most notable for their unapologetic plans of moving to the Bronx; gentrification is a massacre not a war, and these ladies are the loudest sign of the color that’s being squeezed out of Usnavi’s neighborhood. For now, the weak heartbeat of the Heights still belongs to “Abuela” Claudia (Olga Merediz, reprising the role she originated on Broadway), whose solo — beginning on a subway car that worms through time from contemporary Manhattan to the Havana of her youth — epitomizes Chu’s emphasis on lives of constant transition.

It’s the most poetically staged number in a movie that prefers to mix the bombast of a Busby Berkeley musical with the wistful fantasy of a daydream, full of “little details that tell the world we are not invisible,” even if these characters are sometimes the only ones who can see them. Almost the entire company comes together for an all-timer of a sequence at the Highbridge Park public pool sequence that splits the difference between those two energies and highlights how people can move when they don’t have to sing live. Some flourishes work better than others — cartoonish illustrations pull focus from the first part of “96,000,” while the massive reams of fabric that drape over the entire neighborhood as Vanessa unspools her dream in “It Won’t Be Long Now” tip from sweet imagination into garish CGI unreality.

Chu hits a lot more often than he misses, and always when it counts most. One early shot finds Usnavi staring out from his bodega while in the reflection on the window in front of him we see dozens of dancers pop and lock together on the street outside; it’s a perfect and unshakeable expression of someone being split between two worlds even as their home fades into the stuff of memory. The songs of “In the Heights” lack the historical staying power that Miranda later brought to “Hamilton” (some of them sound like first drafts for those later hits), but the cast fills them with such an urgent life force that it hardly matters if the Piragua Guy’s song one of the catchiest things here.

Like so many of its characters, the movie has inherited a number of personal choices that it’s powerless to change, and resisting those choices has a way of tightening their grip. Hudes’ clever script rearranges some of the numbers to give the movie a clearer shape than the show ever had, but the energy still flags in a story that naturally does a better job of establishing inner turmoil than it does of resolving it. Despite the nod to “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Usnavi’s epiphanies still depend on the kind of whiplash that only works on stage.

Hudes also nixes some of the more charged material in order to emphasize the tenuous promise that America offers to people on the move. For all of its frustrated romance, “In the Heights” has always been more nuanced and honest about the unsettled nature of the immigrant experience than seems possible for a hit Broadway show, and so it’s unfortunate that Hudes’ most overtly political new thread is woven into the old material with a clumsiness that makes some of its most realistic moments ring false. For all of Chu’s gifts, shooting a believable protest scene isn’t one of them.

“In the Heights” is a time capsule at heart — one that’s every bit as focused on “who lives who dies who tells your story” as the next musical that Miranda wrote — and it would rather stumble over a few awkward moments than sweep anything under the rug. Unlike the neighborhood it loves so much, this movie will never change. It will never be a victim of the urban amnesia that forced Chu’s production design team to dress Washington Heights in subtle period drag. Its characters will always be waiting there for you, even the ones who are desperate to leave it behind.

This vivid and revitalizing work of cultural memory couldn’t be more at home in the movie theaters that it’s willing back to life. It leaves you so grateful that someone kept the lights on and preserved the honey-sweet (and slightly embarrassed) vertigo that sweeps over your whole body when you sit in a dark room and surrender to a good musical. All you have to do is see it for yourself. As Usnavi would say: “C’mon! Let’s go!”

Warner Bros. will release “In the Heights” in theaters on Friday, June 11. It will also be available to stream on HBO Max for 30 days.

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‘In the Heights’ Sets Out to Do the Impossible — And Largely Succeeds

By K. Austin Collins

K. Austin Collins

Paciencia y fe. /span> . Patience and faith. It’s what Abuela Claudia — in so many ways the emotional center of In the Heights , Lin-Manuel Miranda ’s sun-splashed ode to the immigrant dream — preaches again and again, wearing it on her face, in her bones, even when she’s not saying it aloud. It’s a creed, a word of caution, a bit of humbling advice, and, as practiced by Abuela Claudia herself, a way of making one’s way in the world — especially if that world is America, and the one hacking their way through its indignities over the years is, like Abuela Claudia, an immigrant, a working-class outsider who holds close to her community as if her life depends on it. In the Heights argues: maybe it does.

That creed must have been something that Hollywood upstart Miranda — alongside writer Quiara Alegría Hudes (who wrote the book for the musical ) and director Jon M. Chu ( Crazy Rich Asians ) — must have kept in mind as their project. It’s one based on a Tony-winning breakout; a charismatic, complicated piece of work by theater’s Next Big Thing, which languished in development hell for a decade. It seems you cannot tell the story of In the Heights — a musical about dreamers and dreams, people on the verge of breaking out, if only circumstance didn’t seem poised to work against them — without knowing that the story the musical tells has some disheartening echoes in its own path from stage to screen, or even simply it’s path from the small stage to Broadway. Much of it can be summed up in a recent Miranda quote from Variety : “I would get pitches from producers who only had West Side Story in their cultural memory.”

Such is the situation. It wasn’t enough, Miranda explained , for one of the show’s central characters, Nina, to drop out of Stanford for reasons less dramatic than an unexpected pregnancy or domestic abuse — reasons more damaging than damning of the institutions In the Heights wants, in its friendly but passionate way, to hold to account. When, after the great success of the show on Broadway, Hollywood (by way of Miramax and Universal Studios) balked at the idea of a studio-backed barrio musical, by and about Latinos, that had no name-brand “stars” — that category of actor which often enough depends on someone taking a chance on an unknown. It’s the “self-defeating cycle,” as Miranda has said , of an industry demanding Latino stars in order to justify its financial investment in the project while doing little otherwise to build a pool of Latino stars, fit to satisfy such a demand. It’s as if immaculate conception were a prerequisite for inclusion.

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But — paciencia y fe . The movie is here now, courtesy of Warner Brothers, after being delayed by a year thanks to the pandemic. It is arriving just in time: theaters reopened, pandemic somewhat averted, everyone itching to get outside in celebration of something — anything! Itching to be near each other again. Reviews of In the Heights must take care, as a rule, to recite that the movie simply feels good to watch, with its constant temperature checks reminding us that it’s a New York summer, and its big, busy dance scenes — an entire neighborhood taking to the intersection of West 175th and Amsterdam, in the real Washington Heights of the musical’s setting, to cut loose — and its gorgeous, talented cast, buoyed along for two-and-half hours by songs with memorable swing, gigantic doses of feeling, multiple love stories, poignant conflicts, and a pervading sense of community that somehow surpasses the forces peeling that community apart.

In the Heights is a hopeful musical — not least because it milks substantial power from the threats overhanging all of the above. The changing face of the barrio, in which old shops are getting bought out, rents are rising; a woman like Abuela Claudia can’t even afford the local dry cleaner anymore. The government is threatening to renege on its promise to beneficiaries of the DREAM Act, which ripples quietly through the movie until its immediate implications become explicit. And if that’s not enough, everyone’s got these dreams they’re clinging to — their sueñitos , as Usnavi ( Anthony Ramos ), manager of a local corner store, tells us from some point in the future.

There’s Usnavi’s dream: of moving back to the Dominican Republic, which he left for the U.S. when he was eight years old, to reopen his father’s old beachside bar. Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), the young woman he’s been crushing on, wants to move downtown to jump start her career in fashion, but doesn’t have the credit history to make that easy, nor the ready-made guarantors needed to co-sign on her behalf. Usnavi and Vanessa are tight with Nina (Leslie Grace), the girl who made it all the way to Stanford, who’s back for the summer after what was, by all accounts, a rough first year. Nina’s father, Kevin (the legendary Jimmy Smits, wonderful here), runs a car service and is, it’s clear, willing to do whatever it takes to foot the bill for his daughter to stay afloat at that prestigious school. (Nina’s ex, Benny, played by Corey Hawkins, is in the inconvenient position of working for her father.) If getting out of Washington Heights was Nina’s dream, keeping her there — underwriting her successes best he can — is her father’s. Needless to say, these dreams and others start to wear on each other.

That’s hardly the extent of the cast, by the way, and in fact, some of the best turns are from relatively minor players: Olga Merediz as “Abuela” Claudia — Tony-nominated for her Broadway turn and equally captivating here; Rent legend Daphne Rubin-Vega as Daniela, whose salon is being priced out of its location, in one of the most effective subplots in the entire movie; and Gregory Diaz IV as Sonny de la Vega, Usnavi’s cousin, who doesn’t want to flee to DR with Usnavi because, unlike him, he has no memory of the place. He grew up here, in the United States. But even that fact comes with caveats.

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In the Heights review: Lin-Manuel Miranda's vibrant musical dazzles on screen

Movies don't generally ask for much beyond your eyeballs and your attention span. But to truly fall into a musical sometimes you have to crack your heart open a little bit, just to let all that song and dance and bright-eyed sincerity in; cynicism doesn't leave a lot of room for jazz hands. And there may not be a bigger cardiac rush this year than In The Heights , the Tony-winning 2008 theatrical smash perhaps best known until now as the second most important thing Lin-Manuel Miranda is famous for.

Like his now-canonized Hamilton , Heights (in theaters June 11) is steeped in the joyful multiculturalism and dense syncopated wordplay that has become his signature; unlike it, the film version is both a faithful staging and a full-blown screen extravaganza of its own design. That's due at least in part to director Jon M. Chu ( Crazy Rich Asians ), who sets his gorgeous young cast loose in a New York City where dazzling bits of magical realism — a gravity-defying waltz up the side of a building, a Bollywood-meet-Busby-Berkeley sequence at a municipal pool — live alongside the starker realities of life in the predominately Latinx Washington Heights.

It's also home to Usnavi (an extraordinary Anthony Ramos ), who has spent years running the bodega his late parents left behind, even as he dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic he only knew as a child. Until then he has his childhood friends Benny ( Straight Outta Compton 's Corey Hawkins ) and Nina (Leslie Grace); Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV), the Gumby-limbed teenage employee he protects like a father and heckles like a baby brother; and the teasing promise of romance with a local beauty named Vanessa ( Vida 's Melissa Barrera).

They've got dreams of their own, far beyond the traffic dispatch or nail-salon jobs that just barely pay the bills, and Heights sets those hopes to music in ways that make their everyday subjects soar. Where else would a kaleidoscopic showstopper rest on a retired housecleaner, as "Paciencia Y Fe" does with Olga Merediz's Abuela Claudia? She's one of several veterans, including Jimmy Smits and Daphne Rubin-Vega , who color the vivid corners of the story. (Miranda, too, finds his niche in a winking appearance as the proprietor of a shaved-ice cart and impassioned nemesis of Mister Softee, a.k.a. "Piragua Guy.")

Screenwriter Quiara Alegría Hudes, who also wrote the original stage book, finds ways to update the script for 2021 in ways that feel necessary without being invasive: an affecting side plot about DACA; resonant new anecdotes for Grace's Nina, a Stanford student dismayed to discover just how little the Ivy League is able to see beyond her brown skin. For all its rich tapestry and radiant ingenues, it's that casual centering of so many marginalized voices that makes the movie feel, in its own way, revolutionary: a Technicolor marvel as heady as Old Hollywood, and as modern as this moment. Grade: A–

Review: ‘In the Heights’ brings the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical vividly to life

Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera dance in a scene from the movie "In the Heights."

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The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic . 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 .

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. 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. 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.”

“In the Heights,” Jon M. 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. But it doesn’t stop there. To call this movie assertive would be an understatement; to describe it as small would be a lie. 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.

That scale generally works to the movie’s advantage, though not always. As a collection of interwoven stories set to the pulsing rhythms of everyday barrio life, this “In the Heights” can feel as dramatically thin and overstretched as its source material admittedly was. (The screenwriter, Quiara Alegría Hudes, also wrote the show’s original book.) But as a musical valentine to a close-knit Latino community, an inspired swirl of hip-hop, Latin pop, salsa and other musical idioms, its pleasures are often glorious, even transporting. It summons — and for the most part sustains — the kind of visual and musical energy that might help give the movies the resurgent jab-in-the-arm summer they’ve been waiting for.

Corey Hawkins and Leslie Grace clasp hands in front of a bridge in the movie "In the Heights."

Summer is the operative word. Set during a record-breaking New York heat wave that builds to a fateful Fourth of July blackout, “In the Heights” is, first and foremost, a picture to restore your gratitude for an air-conditioned multiplex. (After showing June 4 at the L.A. Latino International Film Festival and June 9 at the Tribeca Film Festival, the movie will be made available June 11 in theaters and on HBO Max.) When I saw the touring production at the Pantages 11 years ago, the sky-high temperatures were evoked mainly through stagecraft, through warm lighting, summertime apparel and the odd sweltering lyric: “It’s gotten too darn hot,” raps Usnavi as he stacks goods in the corner bodega that keeps this Upper Manhattan neighborhood fed, informed and caffeinated.

The movie, whatever it loses in the translation to the screen, has some obvious atmospheric advantages. 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. It can dive beneath crisscrossing streams of water from renegade fire hydrants, showering a grateful crowd in one of several hat-tips to “Do the Right Thing.” But unlike Spike Lee’s much more trenchant evocation of a humid New York summer, the squeaky-clean “In the Heights” remains unblighted by bad vibes or bitter conflict, some romantic confusion and quickly resolved parent-child angst notwithstanding.

The problems its multigenerational Latino characters face are undeniably complicated and deeply entrenched: the pressures to advance and assimilate; rising gentrification and diminishing opportunities; the seemingly endless quest for a place that can honestly be called home. But those problems are notably confronted here without violence or rancor — a newly tacked-on scene at a DACA protest as politically barbed as it gets — and they are resolved, as much as they can be, with a winningly amiable spirit.

If Abuela Claudia is the wisest embodiment of that spirit, Usnavi is its most prominent face. He’s brought to life with an irreducible mix of pride, enthusiasm, weariness and determination by the terrific actor Anthony Ramos, who previously played the role onstage and also appeared in both stage and screen versions of that exponentially bigger Lin-Manuel Miranda phenomenon, “Hamilton.” (Miranda, who originated the part of Usnavi in the Off Broadway production of “In the Heights,” has a small good-luck-charm role here as a roving piragua seller.)

A party gets under way in "In the Heights."

Usnavi — whose unusual name is a funny, touching byproduct of his late father’s immigrant pride — relishes his role as a pillar of the community and a mentor to Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV), his good-hearted teenage cousin and employee. But Usnavi also longs to return to his childhood home in the Dominican Republic and revive the family business — one of many sueñitos , or little dreams, that his friends and neighbors similarly struggle to keep alive. “In the heights / I flip the lights and start my day / There are fights / Endless debts / And bills to pay,” they sing in a sensational opening number that cuts rapidly between crowded apartments and stairwells before finally descending on a splendidly orchestrated street ballet. (The production designer is Nelson Coates; the choreographer is Christopher Scott.)

That number also introduces other major characters like Vanessa (a superb Melissa Barrera), an aspiring fashion designer who’s eyeing an apartment downtown. (She’s also eyeing a relationship with Usnavi, if he would only listen to his buddies and work up the nerve to ask her out.) Even more on the move is Vanessa’s boss, Daniela (the irrepressible Daphne Rubin-Vega), who’s been priced out of the Heights and is relocating her beauty salon to the Bronx. That salon is the scene of “No Me Diga,” one of the musical’s ripest numbers and a reminder of why this haven of community gossip and genteel trash talk has become such an irreplaceable neighborhood fixture.

The same could be said for the cab company run by Kevin Rosario (Jimmy Smits), a business that keeps shrinking as his daughter Nina’s tuition fees keep mounting. Kevin’s star employee, Benny (a charming Corey Hawkins), is also Nina’s love interest, and their romantic bond serves as a kind of emotional fulcrum, balancing Nina’s growing disenchantment with school against her father’s stubborn insistence that she see it through. Where does she — or, for that matter, anyone — belong? Is leaving a kind of liberation, a betrayal or both? One of the finer points of “In the Heights” is that anyone who’s called the barrio home will have a different answer.

As far removed as a working-class barrio might be from ultra-rich Singapore, Chu tapped into similar elements of generational conflict and cultural confusion in his previous movie, “Crazy Rich Asians,” and showed a ready talent for squeezing those themes into deft, crowd-pleasing packages. Those same instincts are on display here, as are the musical-directing chops — the eye for color and expressive movement — that gave his contributions to the “Step Up” dance-movie franchise their own vibrant kick. He’s particularly attentive to the women in the cast, especially Barrera, who makes Vanessa’s ambition palpable in a performance of radiant intelligence and alertness. Another obvious standout is Merediz, who earned a Tony nomination for playing Abuela Claudia on Broadway, and who lovingly salutes her character’s immigrant journey with the stirring, kaleidoscopic “Paciencia y Fe.”

Leslie Grace and Corey Hawkins stand on a fire escape at sunset in the movie "In the Heights."

That means “Patience and Faith,” and “In the Heights” could at times use more of both. Chu doesn’t entirely avoid the jumpy, cover-it-from-every-angle style that afflicts so many contemporary movie musicals. During a vibrant nightclub sequence where Usnavi and Vanessa keep circling each other, you might long for a steadier visual hand, one that would just let the dancers dance without imposing its own fancy editorial footwork. Still, you understand the impulse behind it: a desire for the camera to be everywhere at every moment, to take in the sheer joyous enormity of what it sees.

That impulse brings about some cleverly conceived set-pieces: a gravity-defying dance alongside a fire escape; a synchronized swim routine for the catchy and suspenseful “96,000”; daubs of animation that make explicit this musical’s debt to fantasy as well as reality. But the most magical sequence has no need for digital embellishment. Nowhere do Chu’s instincts pay off more resoundingly than in “Carnaval del Barrio,” an exuberant block-party number that brings a beleaguered community together and turns a moment of profound collective sorrow into its opposite. You want to be there immediately — and for a few brief, indelible moments, you are.

‘In the Heights’

Rated: PG-13, for some language and suggestive references Running time: 2 hours, 23 minutes Playing: Starts June 11 in general release where theaters are open and streaming on HBO Max

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Ramshackle Dreams Make In the Heights a Believable Fairytale

Last March, In the Heights wound up being the last film I saw in a theater before COVID-19 shut down New York. I had just arrived at a press screening when I learned that our physical office was closing and that everyone would work from home until further notice. This made watching the movie a bittersweet experience. The vision of community, the sweaty intimacy of crowded street corners and apartments and clubs, the revolving door of neighbors and friends drifting through each other’s days like surrogate family, not to mention an enduring, frustrated love for the tousled grandeur of the city itself — all these things, even the very idea of them, felt like they were quickly receding into the past, with little insight into when they might, if ever, return.

Of course, even without a pandemic, In the Heights (now out in theaters and on HBO Max, after a year of delays), directed by Jon M. Chu from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical love letter to the largely Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights, was already suffused with a gentle melancholy — not exactly nostalgia, but a sense of things passing. There’s a fairy-tale retrospection built into the film’s framing device, as our hero, Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), sits at an idyllic beachside bar talking to a group of kids about “a faraway land called Nueva York” and a “barrio called Washington Heights.” (“Say it, so it doesn’t disappear,” he implores them.) His story centers on what would have been his last days in New York, as he prepares to leave behind the bodega he has run for most of his life and return to the Dominican Republic to restore his late father’s beloved bar. The neighborhood is changing, gentrification is encroaching, and Usnavi is tired of slaving away just to make ends meet. Once upon a time, moving to America meant a better life; now, it seems like you must leave to improve your lot.

The bar he hopes to reopen is called “El Sueñito” — “Little Dream” — and the film’s four protagonists all have their distinct little dreams, each revealing a different relationship to this community. Usnavi wants to go back to his family’s homeland, where he believes he spent the best days of his life as a child; Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), the aspiring designer Usnavi not-so-secretly longs for, intends to move downtown to open her own fashion store in the West Village; Nina Rosario (Leslie Grace) has just returned from a tumultuous first year at Stanford determined not to go back but also mortified of disappointing all the family and neighbors who had such high hopes for her; Usnavi’s best friend Benny (Corey Hawkins), who has feelings for Nina Rosario, wants to continue diligently working for the car service owned by her father Kevin (Jimmy Smits), a situation complicated by the fact that Kevin is thinking of selling the business to help pay for his daughter’s tuition.

This quartet of young lovers drives the story, but they’re just part of the expansive tapestry on display. The film’s numbers, drawn from a wide range of musical styles, rarely follow a single emotional through line, instead presenting entire symphonies of character, gesture, and subplot. The movie was shot on location in Washington Heights, lending it an immediacy that makes for a vibrant, occasionally dissonant combination with the outsized aesthetic of a studio musical. Chu simultaneously blends the casual, the lived-in and intimate with a traditional musical’s broad gestures and precise rhythms and dream logic, as the actors flip easily between the naturalistic and the theatrical.

That idea is certainly not new, but it doesn’t always work this well. The film has several show-stoppers, with the best one coming right in the middle, as news that Usnavi’s bodega sold a winning lottery ticket that will pay out $96,000 percolates through the crowd at a giant public pool . Everybody sings, in their own style and cadence, about what they would do with such a sum. Throwaway dance moves, bits of slapstick, glimpses of gritty sincerity are cut against grand, highly coordinated movements. It’s like Busby Berkeley by way of Vittorio De Sica. The musical miniatures within the grander scheme make the individual singers’ hopes and fears palpable, but when the camera pulls out and we see the whole pool rise up for the chorus, the effect is overwhelming, as if the power of a thousand dreams has somehow transformed reality itself.

This sort of informal awkwardness clashing against exacting choreography is the film’s sweet spot. (It’s also where Chu has always thrived, as his lovely entries in the Step Up series demonstrated years ago.) It works during the film’s softer moments, too. Late in the movie, when two of our young lovers dance gently and vertically along the side of an apartment building, the moment startles not for technical reasons — it’s the simplest of effects — but because the dancers are clearly experiencing the wonder of what they’re doing, as if surprised that their emotions have allowed them to defy the laws of gravity. They’re in love, and they’re a little freaked out by how it has literally upended their world. Push too far in either direction — make the dancers too confident, or make them too hesitant — and the scene would lose its charm. Their uncertainty heightens their grace, which in turn heightens their humanity. The same could be said for In the Heights itself, which achieves a ramshackle beauty all its own.

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In the Heights Review: A Superb Adaptation of the Hit Broadway Musical

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Rebel Ridge Review: This Is How You F*cking Do It

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Pulitzer prize winning playwrights Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes bring their Broadway hit, In the Heights , to the big screen with smashing success. Its heartfelt testament to New York City's Washington Heights neighborhood, diverse residents, and vibrant culture is an absolute joy to behold. The story follows a group of tight-knit dreamers over several days on their beloved city block. They sing, dance, and rap their way from corner store bodegas through hydrant-spewing streets. Director Jon M. Chu ( Crazy Rich Asians ) brilliantly captures the magic of the musical without missing a beat or step.

In the Heights has four primary characters that grew up together under the loving care of Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz), a kind woman who had no children, but kept a watchful eye on the block's youth. Usnavi de la Vega (Anthony Ramos) lost his parents at an early age. He owns the corner bodega, but dreams of returning to his father's dilapidated bar in the Dominican Republic. He's enamored with the beautiful Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), a nail salon worker and struggling fashion designer desperate to move downtown. Nina (Leslie Grace) was the smartest kid on the block. She got accepted to Stanford. Fulfilling the hopes of her immigrant father, Kevin (Jimmy Smits), the owner of a livery car service. Then we have Benny (Corey Hawkins), he works as a dispatcher for Kevin, and has always been smitten by Nina.

The majority of the plot takes place over three scorching summer days preceding a citywide blackout. Usnavi has finally saved enough to buy back his father's beachfront Caribbean bar. Nina returns home after a horrible freshman year at Stanford. Where she faced constant discrimination as a poor Boricua girl. Vanessa has the money to get a studio apartment in the West Village, but cannot pass the credit and earnings check. Benny senses Nina is hiding something. She doesn't know that her father has leveraged his business to pay her expensive tuition. All worlds collide as the intense heat and raw emotions lead to a series of life-changing events for the group.

In the Heights is a stellar Hamilton follow-up from Lin-Manuel Miranda , who produces and has a small supporting role as a piragua (flavored shaved ice) seller. The musical numbers are well-executed with lavish, stunning choreography. They range from intimate apartment settings to multiple streets where the entire neighborhood participates. It helps to have Anthony Ramos, who also starred in the theatrical production, as the focal point. He has the dramatic skill and musical talent to anchor any kind of scene. The film never feels bloated because the storyline always reverts to Usnavi's perspective.

In the Heights celebrates the cultural contributions of its immigrant community . The food, language, fashion, art, and dancing pull from the multi-ethnic soup of Washington Heights. I lived there for eight years. This is the first mainstream film to show the neighborhood's incredible diversity in a purely positive light. Hollywood rarely portrays Manhattan above 96th street. It's a completely different ballgame from what's seen on Friends and Seinfeld reruns. In the Heights will open eyes and hearts to a different experience that's also uniquely American.

My sole critique for this film is the length. It feels longer than the two hour and thirteen minutes runtime. The singing and dancing is great, but some scenes could have been truncated to help the pacing. This is especially evident in a final act that drags on. In the Heights is produced by 5000 Broadway Productions, Likely Story, and Scott Sanders Productions. It will be released concurrently in theaters and HBO Max on June 10th by Warner Bros.

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In the heights review: a joyful, energetic musical with a moving story.

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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Box Office Setting All-Time Records 36 Years After Original's Release [Full Chart Update]

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With Dear Evan Hansen and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie upcoming, 2021 may just be the year of the musical and In the Heights , directed by Jon M. Chu , ushers in a fabulously strong start to the summer movie experience. The film, based on the Broadway play by Lin-Manuel Miranda (who wrote the music and lyrics) and Quiara Alegría Hudes (who wrote the book and the film’s screenplay), is an enchanting, lively, and magnetic musical adaptation. With an outstanding cast and compelling themes, In the Height s soars, bringing emotional beats together in a celebration of culture and community.

Set in New York City’s Washington Heights, the story follows Usnavi de la Vega (Anthony Ramos), a bodega owner who dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic to fulfill the dreams of his father and is encouraged by his Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz), the neighborhood’s beloved grandmother who is always buying lottery tickets in the hopes she will win someday. His best friend Benny (Corey Hawkins) works at the local dispatch company owned by Kevin Rosario (Jimmy Smits), the father of Nina (Leslie Grace), who has just returned from Stanford and is not looking forward to breaking the news about her decision. Meanwhile, Vanessa (Melissa Barrera) is a budding fashion designer who believes she needs to move downtown to catch her big break, but struggles with finding a place to rent. The musical’s events take place over the course of several days in the midst of a summer heat wave, with each of the characters grappling with the next big steps in their lives and what their decisions mean for their futures.

Related: Every Hamilton Actor Returning For In The Heights

In the Heights is a rapturous celebration of the Latinx community. The film’s New York City setting is incredibly well utilized — the streets, the bodega, the public pool, the subway, and the interior rooms are all used in ways that not only elevate the story, but turn Washington Heights into an additional character. This is how cities should be employed in any story and it makes the musical all the better for it, effectively capturing the essence of the location and its diverse population. Each and every scene is also brimming with a contagious spirit, one that will make viewers want to dance along to the songs. From “96,000,” a number that implements all the characters and hundreds of extras dancing in and around the pool, to “Carnaval Del Barrio,” a sizzling neighborhood party starter (and one of the best scenes in the film), the music and lyrics work to tell the story of the characters, their journeys, and the block they call home with zeal.

The songs and story beats bring laughter and tears, with the film balancing the highs and lows of the characters’ journeys. In the Heights is deeply sentimental, with the warmth and love of the characters enveloping even the most tension-fueled moments. It’s the strength of the characters’ relationships and the deep sense of community that makes this film all the more powerful, with emotional beats that pull at the heart strings and tender romantic sequences that are enchanting and lovely, elevated even more thanks to the actors’ chemistry (this is especially true of Corey Hawkins and Leslie Grace). The musical buzzes with energy, captivating audiences’ senses from the start. It’s visually spectacular as well, with the costume and production designs detailed and colorful.

In the Heights also touches upon themes of belonging, what home can look like for first and second generation immigrants. With feet planted firmly in Washington Heights, the residents of the block contemplate their dreams beyond their neighborhood while also exploring their dual identities and sense of where they fit in. Some of them are able to hope for a better future, believing that things will start happening for them if they leave the neighborhood behind; others don’t have the privilege to dream at all because they aren’t deemed citizens in a country they have always called home. In the Heights also explores the pressures of generational expectations and how a parent’s dreams can be shifted to their child, which can cause a lot of tension, but is a subject that is incredibly realistic and handled with the right amount of thoughtfulness.

While the film contends with belonging, it also celebrates bicultural identities with poignancy, heart, warmth, and pride. In the Heights is a beautifully made film and the passionate efforts that have been poured into bringing it to life are on display in every scene. There are a couple of alterations made from the original show to fit more with the flow of the film and it works, effectively enhancing the experience of the musical’s original setup without removing the heart of the story. Musicals are not so easy to adapt to the big screen — some things work in favor of the story while others don’t. However, In the Heights is engrossing, vibrant, with a thoughtful, entertainingly-told story that feels spirited and authentic.

Next: New In The Heights Clip Showcases Movie Musical's Impressive Cast

In the Heights will release in theaters and on HBO Max June 11. The film is 143 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for some language and suggestive references.

In the Heights

Adapted for the screen from Lin Manuel Miranda's Broadway musical of the same name, In the Heights stars Anthony Ramos as Usnavi de la Vega, a bodega owner in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Usnavi's daily life and the lives of the other neighborhood residents are detailed through song, set against the backdrop of a sweltering New York City summer.

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Why ‘in the heights’ lives up to hype: hot musical is year’s best movie, in the heights.

Running time: 143 minutes. Rated PG-13 (some language and suggestive references). In theaters and on HBO Max June 10.

Lin-Manuel Miranda has done it again! Again!

The “Hamilton” creator’s blissful new movie “In the Heights,” which is based on his Tony Award-winning 2008 musical, is the best film of the year so far. It’s also easily the best movie-musical since the Oscar-winning “Chicago” from way back in 2002. Please excuse me while I look up some synonyms for “best.”

Romantic and funny, the film — out Thursday in theaters and on HBO Max — is a dazzling ode to New York City and Washington Heights, the Upper Manhattan neighborhood where Miranda grew up and still lives today. It’s a vibrant Latino community whose residents have roots primarily in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, which is where the main character Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) hails from.

“In the Heights” has always been unusual as far as Broadway musicals go. Unlike glitzier fare such as “Hello, Dolly!” or “Les Misérables,” these characters’ troubles are far more commonplace: a dad selling his business to pay for his daughter’s college education, a teen trying to get citizenship, a power outage.

No Parisian phantoms cut down a giant chandelier. Here, a cashier fixes the refrigerator motor.

But the residents’ daily struggles, told through Miranda’s infectious rap, R&B and Latin music, break your heart, and their resilience lifts your spirit. In fact, on-screen, “In the Heights” packs more of a punch than the show ever did onstage, which is a rarity.

That’s in large part thanks to Jon M. Chu (“Crazy Rich Asians”), the most reliably entertaining director working today, who shot the film in the real Washington Heights. Now the story not only pulses with energy and vitality, but it oozes authenticity, too.

Clever Chu turns tiny things we take for granted — shop windows, manhole covers, fire escapes — into movie magic. It’s especially satisfying to see actual locales such as Highbridge Pool or subway platforms become sparkling Hollywood sets for fabulous dances choreographed by Alice Brooks.

"In The Heights," starring Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barbera, is one of the most dazzling movie musicals in years.

Chu also wisely cast lesser-known young actors in the parts, rather than A-listers or pop stars. Ramos’ Usnavi is the charmingly frenetic owner of a bodega, which is the center of his community. Everybody comes to Usnavi and his cousin Sonny (a sweet and funny Gregory Diaz IV) for their coffee, Lotto tickets, Cokes, condoms, Ben & Jerry’s and most everything else you could possibly want. Ramos is so damn lovable in this role. He’s famous for “Hamilton,” but now he’s proven himself a bona fide leading man.

Usnavi is crushing hard on Vanessa (Melissa Barrera, a spectacular find), an aspiring fashion designer who desperately wants to move downtown to Greenwich Village. Meanwhile, her best friend Nina (Leslie Grace) has returned home from her first semester at Stanford, where she didn’t fit in, to her disappointed dad (Jimmy Smits). As Usnavi’s abuela, Olga Merediz has the most emotional heft. Corey Hawkins, meanwhile, sings smoothly as his best friend Benny, who works as a car-service dispatcher.

Trust me — it’s been ages since you’ve seen actors have this much fun in a movie.

And that jubilation is why this is the one film that I’m glad was delayed by the pandemic. It’s more potent now to watch hustling, passionate young people dancing in packed streets at the peak of summer, hop on and off trains and gossip in a salon. As New York reopens, think of “In the Heights” as the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

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In the heights.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 15 Reviews
Kids Say 56 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Joyous, touching musical has some innuendo, language.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 11+?

Language includes "s--t," "damn," "goddamn," "hell," "caramba," "s--tty," "shake

A couple of kisses, flirting. Many longing looks. Innuendoes ("he's got a big ..

A beloved character dies peacefully; their body is visible but looks as if sleep

Lots of brands visible in the bodega: Utz chips, Maria's cookies, El Pilon coffe

Adults at a club drink in the background. There's a bar in the club, and Usnavi

Any Positive Content?

Emphasizes importance of community, teamwork, compassion, empathy, perseverance.

Characters share resources and opportunities and help, encourage, and support on

The cast is filled with Latino characters who have come to live in America from

Language includes "s--t," "damn," "goddamn," "hell," "caramba," "s--tty," "shake your ass," "skank."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A couple of kisses, flirting. Many longing looks. Innuendoes ("he's got a big ... taxi!") and a few salty references. Discussion of Usnavi's crush on Vanessa. Gossipy hairstylists make it seem like Usnavi had "hooked up" with someone else, but they're just feeling out Vanessa's reaction. References to Benny and Nina's romantic relationship, and them reuniting/spending the night together. Some sensual dancing.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

A beloved character dies peacefully; their body is visible but looks as if sleeping. Characters mourn the loss. During the blackout, everyone rushes out of a club -- pushing and trying to get out and find their friends. A couple of characters look worried and panicky. A character talks about being racially profiled and searched as a burglary suspect.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Lots of brands visible in the bodega: Utz chips, Maria's cookies, El Pilon coffee, Lipton tea, Coca-Cola. A character wears Beats by Dre headphones.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adults at a club drink in the background. There's a bar in the club, and Usnavi talks about his father's bar. Characters have a cold beer together in the heat. It's implied that Sonny's dad has an alcohol dependency.

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Positive Messages

Emphasizes importance of community, teamwork, compassion, empathy, perseverance. Talks about how dreams can be a place or a person and can signify community and success -- whether that success is academic, entrepreneurial, or personal. The musical is staunchly pro-immigration and, like Hamilton , explores how "immigrants get the job done" and advocates for why America should be proud of its immigrants.

Positive Role Models

Characters share resources and opportunities and help, encourage, and support one another in various practical and emotional ways. People make mistakes, but they learn from them.

Diverse Representations

The cast is filled with Latino characters who have come to live in America from various places: Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, etc. But movie has faced criticism around colorism given its lack of Afro-Latino characters in setting of Washington Heights, which has a large Afro-Dominican population. Celebrates working-class individuals, immigrants, community elders. Women have backstories but are seen through a male lens, with Vanessa in particular pursued by a lovesick Usnavi, whose friends egg him on. A same-sex couple appears in minor, blink-and-you-miss-it scenes.

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Parents need to know that In the Heights is director Jon M. Chu 's joyous stage-to-screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes' Tony Award-winning Broadway musical about a group of neighbors who live in the same predominantly Latino neighborhood of Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan. Regular Miranda collaborator Anthony Ramos stars as Usnavi, a bodega owner whose shop sells a lottery-winning ticket and who introduces viewers to his friends on the block. The film chronicles the lives of hardworking, striving Latino and Black people and immigrants who dream big, navigating the odds to persevere and build a strong, supportive community. Language isn't frequent but delves into salty territory ("s--t," "ass," "goddamn," "skank," etc.). There are a couple of romances that include kisses and references to spending the night together, some wink-wink references ("he's got a big ... taxi!"), and social drinking by adults (as well as one character who's implied to have an alcohol dependency). A beloved character dies peacefully, and many others mourn the loss. Families who love Hamilton and Miranda's work will want to see his first tribute to the idea that "immigrants get the job done." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (15)
Kids say (56)

Based on 15 parent reviews

4 sets of thumbs up from this family

Not for kids, fine for mature ages 11 and up, what's the story.

IN THE HEIGHTS is the big-screen version of Lin-Manuel Miranda 's first Tony Award-winning musical, which tells the story of a group of friends living in the predominantly Latino neighborhood of Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan. It's structured as a flashback, with bodega owner Usnavi ( Anthony Ramos ) telling a bunch of kids about the corner where he lived and ran his store. On the hottest day of the summer, he decides to close his bodega and buy the place on the beach where he and his late father spent the "best days of his life" in the Dominican Republic. Then he finds out that someone has bought a $96,000-winning lottery ticket at his store, and everyone starts to wonder about what they'd do with the money. Usnavi's friends and neighbors include Daniela (Daphne Rubin-Vega), whose beauty salon is about to move to the Bronx because of gentrification, and Benny ( Corey Hawkins ), who works as a car-service dispatcher and eagerly awaits the arrival of his boss's ( Jimmy Smits ) daughter, Nina (Leslie Grace), who just finished her first year at Stanford. There's also Usnavi's lifelong crush, Vanessa ( Melissa Barrera ), a stylist at Daniela's who dreams of moving to the West Village and working in the fashion industry, and Cuban American matriarch Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz, reprising her Broadway role), who cooks for and looks after everyone, especially Usnavi and his younger cousin, Sonny ( Gregory Diaz IV ). Miranda appears as the local piragua seller, who walks around peddling the flavored shaved ice from a cart.

Is It Any Good?

Director Jon M. Chu 's adaptation of Miranda's first deeply personal Broadway musical is a jubilant, powerful tribute to the robust lives, loves, and dreams of a beloved neighborhood. Hamilton veteran Ramos is brilliantly cast as Usnavi (a role Miranda originated on Broadway), who's torn between fulfilling his father's dreams in the Dominican Republic and continuing to build a life in the United States. The entire ensemble is wonderful, from the young Diaz as Usnavi's clever cousin to the gorgeous, talented Barrera as Vanessa. Hawkins and Grace share a striking chemistry as former couple with lingering feelings Benny and Nina; Grace, in particular, authentically conveys the struggles of first-generation college students who attend elite institutions. Nina's first song, "Breathe," is a touching commentary on the burden of being the "star" who's supposed to make it big. The cast benefits tremendously from the presence of Merediz as Abuela Claudia, a character it's difficult to imagine anyone else playing. And the trio of beauty salon stylists (Rubin-Vega, Brooklyn 99 star Stephanie Beatriz , and Orange Is the New Black 's Dascha Polanco ) are hilarious as the musical's gossipy chorus.

Hamilfans will happily recognize LMM's signature style in all of the songs: They're boisterous, moving, and crowd-pleasingly catchy. "96,000" is an amusing reverie on the myriad ways the characters would spend the loot, and "Paciencia and Fe" is Abuela Claudia's beautiful personal narrative about her mother's favorite saying ("patience and faith"). Marc Anthony , who has a small but pivotal role as Sonny's father/Usnavi's uncle, lends his voice for the soundtrack's original track, "Home All Summer," which plays over the credits. In the same way that Chu's book-to-screen adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians amplified and elevated the talents of East Asian (and diaspora) characters/actors, In the Heights revolves around New York City's Latino population, albeit with a focus on light-skinned Latinos despite Washington Heights' large Afro-Latino population. Usnavi is Dominican, the Rosarios are Puerto Rican, Abuela Claudia is Cuban, and the rest of the characters represent various Latin American cultures. The "Carnaval del Barrio" number -- which is reminiscent of West Side Story 's "America" -- is a triumphant reminder of the neighborhood's working-class immigrants united in a new homeland.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the popularity of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musicals, and why Hamilton and In the Heights seem to strike a chord with large audiences -- even those who often aren't into musicals.

Discuss Nina's experiences with prejudice and racism at college. How did those incidents affect her? How can you combat racism when you are confronted with it?

Which characters are role models in the musical? Which character strengths do they demonstrate?

Talk about how the musical addresses immigration and the idea of the American Dream. In what ways is the musical a tribute to Spanish-speaking immigrants who settle in New York City?

In real life, the Washington Heights neighborhood has a large Afro-Latino population. Is that fact reflected in the film?

Movie Details

In theaters : June 10, 2021
On DVD or streaming : June 10, 2021
Cast : Anthony Ramos , Corey Hawkins , Melissa Barrera , Jimmy Smits , Lin-Manuel Miranda
Director : Jon M. Chu
Inclusion Information : Asian directors, Latino actors, Black actors, Female actors
Studio : Warner Bros.
Genre : Musical
Topics : Music and Sing-Along
Character Strengths : Empathy , Perseverance , Teamwork
Run time : 143 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : some language and suggestive references
Award : Common Sense Selection
Last updated : August 7, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

What to watch next.

West Side Story

Mary Poppins Returns

Do the Right Thing

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Perseverance
Music and Sing-Along

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Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

IMAGES

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In the Heights (2021)*
In the Heights (2021)
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COMMENTS

In the Heights movie review & film summary (2021)
In The Heights movie review & film summary (2021)
In the Heights (2021)
In the Heights (2021)
'In the Heights' Review: In Dreams Begin Responsibilities
In the Heights. NYT Critic's Pick. Directed by Jon M. Chu. Drama, Music, Musical, Romance. PG-13. 2h 23m. Find Tickets. When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our ...
In the Heights
Full Review | Sep 28, 2022. Zoë Rose Bryant Loud and Clear Reviews. In the Heights is an emotionally resonant epic that masterfully reinvigorates the musical genre with its electrifying ensemble ...
'In The Heights' Review: Lin-Manuel Miranda Musical Adapts For The
In the Heights couldn't be more perfectly timed. For one thing, summer movies don't get much more summery than this one, which takes place during a record-breaking New York heat wave.
'In the Heights': Film Review
Screenwriter: Quiara Alegria Hudes, based on the musical stage play with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, book by Hudes, concept by Miranda. Rated PG-13, 2 hours 23 minutes. Even if Crazy ...
In the Heights Review
All Reviews Editor's Choice Game Reviews Movie Reviews TV Show Reviews Tech Reviews. Discover. ... This is an advance review of In the Heights, which opens in theaters and HBO Max on June 11.
'In the Heights' Review: A Big, Beautiful Celebration of ...
Originally scheduled for summer 2020, the film was delayed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and yet it feels even more immediate because of its emphasis on community and what we owe to each ...
In the Heights (2021)
In the Heights: Directed by Jon M. Chu. With Anthony Ramos, Melissa Barrera, Leslie Grace, Corey Hawkins. In Washington Heights, a sympathetic New York bodega owner saves every penny every day as he imagines and sings about a better life.
In the Heights Review: A Movie Musical Dream Come True
Unlike the neighborhood it loves so much, this movie will never change. It will never be a victim of the urban amnesia that forced Chu's production design team to dress Washington Heights in ...
'In the Heights' Review: Movie Musical Streaming HBO Max, in Theaters
In the Heights, a very entertaining movie, largely makes good on it. The best possible outcome would be a future free of any such burden to begin with. In the Heights is in theaters and streaming ...
'In the Heights' review roundup: See what critics are saying
Opening weekend for the big-screen adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's debut Broadway musical "In the Heights" is finally upon us after the COVID-19 pandemic delayed its theatrical release ...
'In the Heights' reviews: What critics are saying
Warner Bros. "In the Heights" is a celebration of love, life and community, critics say. The film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Tony Award-winning musical currently holds at 97% "Fresh ...
In the Heights review: Lin-Manuel Miranda's vibrant musical dazzles on
Like his now-canonized 'Hamilton,' 'In the Heights' (in theaters June 11) is steeped in the joyful multiculturalism and dense syncopated wordplay that has become Lin-Manuel Miranda's signature.
Review: 'In the Heights' sets the bar high for this year's movie
Big and vibrant, "In the Heights" provides summer movie-going with a joyous jolt of adrenalin, wedding the sensibilities of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical with "Crazy Rich Asians" director ...
'In the Heights' review: Broadway musical jumps vividly to screen
Anthony Ramos and Melissa Barrera in "In the Heights," a new screen adaptation of the Tony-winning Lin-Manuel Miranda musical. The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases ...
In the Heights Review: A Believable Fairytale
In the Heights. a Believable Fairytale. Last March, In the Heights wound up being the last film I saw in a theater before COVID-19 shut down New York. I had just arrived at a press screening when ...
In the Heights Review: A Superb Adaptation of the Hit ...
It feels longer than the two hour and thirteen minutes runtime. The singing and dancing is great, but some scenes could have been truncated to help the pacing. This is especially evident in a ...
In The Heights Review: A Joyful, Energetic Musical With A Moving Story
With Dear Evan Hansen and Everybody's Talking About Jamie upcoming, 2021 may just be the year of the musical and In the Heights, directed by Jon M. Chu, ushers in a fabulously strong start to the summer movie experience. The film, based on the Broadway play by Lin-Manuel Miranda (who wrote the music and lyrics) and Quiara Alegría Hudes (who wrote the book and the film's screenplay), is an ...
'In The Heights' review: Musical is the year's best movie
Lin-Manuel Miranda's film is a dazzling ode to NYC and Washington Heights. The "Hamilton" creator's blissful new movie, based on his Tony Award-winning 2008 musical, is the best film of ...
In the Heights
Lights up on Washington Heights...The scent of a cafecito caliente hangs in the air just outside of the 181st Street subway stop, where a kaleidoscope of dreams rallies this vibrant and tight-knit community. At the intersection of it all is the likeable, magnetic bodega owner Usnavi (Anthony Ramos), who saves every penny from his daily grind as he hopes, imagines and sings about a better life.
In the Heights Movie Review
Our review: Parents say (15 ): Kids say (56 ): Director Jon M. Chu 's adaptation of Miranda's first deeply personal Broadway musical is a jubilant, powerful tribute to the robust lives, loves, and dreams of a beloved neighborhood. Hamilton veteran Ramos is brilliantly cast as Usnavi (a role Miranda originated on Broadway), who's torn between ...
Review: 'In The Heights' is the Joyous Celebration We Need (and Deserve)
In the Heights is the summer movie we all need, especially at this time when we're coming off such a rotten year. The film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's Tony Award-winning 2008 Broadway musical is a joyous, life-affirming celebration.
'Pavements' review: A slanted, enchanting documentary-biopic-prank
Alex Ross Perry takes the concert film and the music biopic to strange and hilarious heights with "Pavements," about the band Pavement. Review.

In the Heights

Tomris Laffly

Cinematographer

Writer (based on the musical stage play, concept by)

Composer (songs)

Writer (based on the musical stage play, book by)

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