Hayden Hewitt
Special to the Jimplecute
“In the Heights,” is a 2021 movie musical based on the 2005 Broadway musical of the same name. While the story is almost the same in the new adaptation, it seems as if it is missing a lot of what makes the original so great.
The 2021 movie version of “In the Heights,” was directed by Jon M. Chu, director of “Crazy Rich Asians.” The screenplay was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes. It is important to note that the original Broadway version of “In the Heights,” was created by the joint visions of Miranda and Hudes.
The original story is about a neighborhood of latino immigrants in New York City. More than that, it is a story about community. It is a story about celebrating your heritage and how far you have come without forgetting how you got there.
It is a story about becoming an adult and deciding which dreams are worth keeping and what you want to do with your life.
Before I even compare the two productions’ stories, I want to mention that only about three of the people in the movie’s cast had equal or greater singing skills than the original cast. Benny, Nina and Abuela Claudia were the only characters who possess singing skills to make the original cast proud.
The stories and lessons from “In the Heights,” rest almost solely in the musical numbers of the characters. In the movie version, seven of the 23 original numbers were cut out completely, not to mention the two or so numbers that were changed almost beyond recognition.
Even more shocking was the fact that the character Camilla was cut completely.
One of the major plot lines in “In the Heights,” revolves around Nina Rosario, the daughter of Kevin and Camilla Rosario, owners of the local cab company. Nina was always the smartest child on the block and worked her entire academic career to go to college.
However, after Nina gets there she realizes that she’s much different from her other wealthy classmates, feels like she doesn’t belong and drops out. Her story is about her trying to find a way to explain to her parents why she is no longer in college and worrying about letting them down.
In both versions of “In the Heights,” Kevin Rosario is an intensely stubborn man with a short fuse but a huge amount of love and pride for his daughter. Kevin is beautifully balanced by his wife Camilla in the stage version.
Camilla is very much the glue that holds the Rosario family together. Without her, the movie version of the Rosario family feels like it is missing something. Nina and Kevin are too similar; it seems like they need someone to balance them out.
“He doesn’t sleep when you’re gone. He’s worked his whole life to help you go further, and he can’t admit when he’s wrong, now who does that remind you of? You two deserve each other,” Camilla says.
On the topic of the Rosarios, one of the songs cut was Kevin’s solo. It is one of the most heart-wrenching songs in the whole musical. His number is entitled “Inútil,” which literally means useless.
Kevin’s song describes how his father saw him as useless because he wanted to make a better life for himself. He threw himself into making his daughter’s life better than his ever was.
“I will not be the reason that my family can’t succeed. I will do what it takes, they’ll have everything they need, all my work, all my life, everything I’ve ever sacrificed will not have been useless,” he says.
Without Kevin’s number, the audience just doesn’t get the level of understanding of him that they need to make a full decision on whether he is acting for the right reasons or not.
The movie was two hours and 17 minutes long. Most people with that knowledge would now look at the cut numbers and say, “Ok, that’s how it has to be, you couldn’t make the movie any longer or no one would watch it.”
First of all, that is not necessarily true. The movie musical “Les Miserablés,” was two hours and 38 minutes long and was a huge box office hit, not to mention a personal favorite of mine.
Secondly, there was much more added dialogue to the movie script.
All of the wonderfully created numbers that allowed a full look into the characters’ backgrounds were traded for long discussions about Usnavi maybe buying a house in the Dominican Republic or Sonny and his dad and their shoddily created story about illegal immigration that was not a part of the original play.
The feel of the movie, especially from the point of view of a long-time fan of the original story and soundtrack is that they traded the heart and soul of the musical for a political message.
The political intonations in the movie version of “In the Heights,” felt very forced and took too much precedence over the true, universal messages of the original musical.
The question I ask myself over and over is, “How?”
“How did Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes sit idly by and watch their masterful work of art be picked to bits and left as a political statement that means less to people?”
I guess I may never know the answer to that question but in the meantime I will not be rewatching the disgrace that was the movie version of “In the Heights.”
I will instead stick to imagining it my way while listening to the original soundtrack.
Photo from Warner Bros.