Alright! Today I'm reviewing the movie adaptation of an autobiographical musical from Jonathan Larson, tick... tick... BOOM! Featuring Lin-Manuel Miranda's (Hamilton, In the Heights, Moana) directorial debut, this is a pretty impressive feat of stage magic.
I don't know much about the actual play, but I'm pretty sure it's a three-person show where they just kind of sing a story. It's not very cinematic, basically. And yet tick... tick... BOOM! is one of the most "real" feeling movies of the year. It feels like a drama that sometimes slips into song. It follows that Bob Fosse quote to a T “The time to sing is when your emotional level is just too high to speak anymore, and the time to dance is when your emotions are just too strong to only sing about how you feel.”
The movie effortlessly slips between casual conversation and high-energy songs and then to fun dance numbers. It's truly impressive how well everything flows well together. Not many movie adaptations get that balance right, but Lin-Manuel Miranda and company make it look incredibly easy.
Everything is beautifully staged and beautifully performed. Andrew Garfield can sing! And he sings incredibly! We already knew he could act from the likes of The Social Network, but here he steals (and carries) the show.
Ironic that Netflix ended up with one of the more… cinematic feeling movies of the year. The luscious staging spills into every frame. In many ways, it feels like you’re watching a bona fide stage production. Big numbers, fancy dancing, and actors loving every moment of it.
Unfortunately, my biggest gripe about the movie is not one that can be fixed and one that has to be excused - true to the source material, Jonathan Larson’s life (And the movie’s ending) is short and unfulfilling. While I do wish his success with Rent was shown more instead of part of the closing narration, the dude literally died a day before it opened. I get that there was no more story, and I can only imagine the real life tragedy of the scenario.
Unfortunate, but necessary. He just died. And sometimes life is like that, people just die. And, side note, something I’ve thought about frequently since I saw the movie is all these 20-somethings talking about how all their friends are dead and that they could be next… I can’t vouch for that, but that seems rather bleak.
But still. This is a movie chock-full of chasing your dreams and never giving up, and as someone still trying to figure their dream, that really spoke to me. This movie spoke to me in a lot of ways, and that’s a very endearing quality.
Overall, I give tick... tick... BOOM! an 8/10. "A steady directorial hand, showstopping moments, and an incredible performance from Andrew Garfield make tick... tick... BOOM! the perfect way to adapt a musical."
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