Tick, Tick...Boom

Back in 1990, Jonathan Larson (portrayed here magnificently by Andrew Garfield) was your standard struggling composer living in a small New York apartment, and working a dead-end job at a diner to make whatever ends he could meet.  He was about to hit 30, and had been struggling for the past 8 years to get his idea for an ambitious Sci-Fi stage musical called Superbia off the ground and on Broadway.  As he was approaching his 30th birthday, he tortured himself by noting that his idol, Stephen Sondheim, had already had a production running on Broadway by the age of 27.

Tick, Tick...Boom originally started life as a solo stage musical piece that Larson would perform, which celebrated the creative process that he went through, trying to get his idea off the ground.  The film version, now playing on Netflix, not only tells Larson's story, but also finds a sad irony to his life.  He was a man who felt like he was running out of time as he left his 20s.  What he could not realize, obviously, is how little time he actually had.  As the film points out in its opening prologue, Larson would pass away from an aortic aneurysm at the age of 35 in 1995 on the day that his next musical work, Rent, would open Off-Broadway, and eventually go on to revolutionize Broadway musicals for the time period.  This fact makes the film not just a musical celebration of the creative process that Larson intended when he originally wrote the show for the stage, but also a poignant and touching reminder of how little time we actually have to follow our own dreams.

The film represents the directing debut of Lin Manuel-Miranda, who must feel a certain kinship with the late Larson.  He had his first musical, In the Heights, produced on Broadway when he was 28, and would later go on to write the musical phenomenon Hamilton.  It is impossible to think that he doesn't have a certain understanding of everything the film and the original stage production depicts of Larson's personal triumphs and defeats of trying to get his career off the ground.  Manuel-Miranda has turned Larson's small and deeply personal musical into a lavish biofilm that not only celebrates the creative process, but also the man at the center of it all.  Everything has been maintained, but also has been given new life.  After the recent crushing disappointment of the Dear Evan Hansen film, this single-handedly renews my faith in movie musicals.  

He has managed to retain elements of the original stage production, which was just Larson sitting at a piano on the stage, and open it up in order to tell his story, making it into a cinematic event.  This could not have been an easy task, and considering that this serves as Manuel-Miranda's directing debut, it shows an absolute confidence and skill behind the camera.  We get moments with Garfield as Larson performing the piece on the stage in front of an audience, along with two other singers (portrayed by Vanessa Hudgens and Joshua Henry).  But throughout, we are taken into a dramatization of Larson's life, his struggles with his show, as well as the personal relationships.  

What the screenplay credited to Steven Levenson gets right is that it both celebrates Larson's creativity, and shows its weaknesses.  There are moments throughout where Larson gets completely lost in his work, and it allows his relationships with his closest friends and the woman he loves (Alexandra Shipp) to suffer.  Also key to the film is Larson's relationship with his best friend Michael (Robin de Jesús), who has been in the creative trenches with Larson from the beginning, but has recently decided to leave it all behind to take a high-paying job at an ad agency.  This puts Larson in a complicated position where he both feels somewhat betrayed by his friend, but envious at the same time that he doesn't have to worry about money anymore.  

Tick, Tick...Boom not only celebrates Larson and his creative struggles, but it looks at it at all angles.  The film's advance knowledge of how his story would end also adds a certain sadness to the piece that was never intended originally, but adds a great amount of power.  And yet, this is not a depressing film in the slightest.  It's full of life and some of the more vibrant musical numbers I've seen since the musical adaptation of Manuel-Miranda's own In the Heights from earlier this year.  The stand out sequence in the film would definitely be "Sunday", which was Larson's ode to his musical idol Stephen Sondheim, and features cameos by a large number of musical theater legends performing alongside Garfield.  It's the ultimate Easter Egg sequence for musical theater fanatics.  Speaking of Sondheim, Larson would eventually craft a relationship with the man, and he is portrayed here by Bradley Whitford.  However, when the man leaves a message on Larson's answering machine late in the film, that is Sondheim's voice we hear.  Given that the musical theater legend passed away at the age of 91 just two days before I wrote this review, this too adds an unintended bit of poignancy.  

This is one of the great films of the year, and should be experienced by anyone with any kind of creative spark, as it's certain to hold a great amount of power for them.  It's not just a powerful work, but also emotional and joyous, and perfectly performed, and it marks Manuel-Miranda as a true filmmaking talent that I can't wait to see evolve with time.  Tick, Tick...Boom is dynamic in a way that few films are, and few can dream of being.

0 comments