Before Hamilton, there was In The Heights. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s other musical isn’t about the origins of the United States of America, but it’s just as interested in identity, immigrant stories, and banging hip-hop songs – this time centred around the predominantly Latin-American inhabitants of New York’s Washington Heights district, facing the pressures of gentrification and rising rents amid their hopes and dreams for love and success. In The Heights is set to hit the big screen in 2020 courtesy of a film adaptation by Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu – a filmmaker who knows a thing or two about joyous, diverse, culturally-specific stories that sing on a universally-relatable level. Empire caught up with the director to break down the film’s dazzling first trailer.
Beyond The Heights
At the centre of the story is bodega owner Usnavi, played by original Hamilton cast member Anthony Ramos. In a new addition for the movie, he’s seen telling his story to a group of kids on a beach somewhere that looks decidedly unlike New York. “That's a new framing device,” Chu confirms. “We're in a different era. Washington Heights is past gentrification. It's happened. It's less about, 'Let's fight the mayor and make sure we stay in our building', and more about, ‘The change happened, so what are the most important things to pass forward?’ Our ancestors came here with bags in their hands. So what are we putting in our bags to pass on to our kids? I loved this idea of having an older Usnavi looking back on his life. It was really helpful for us in the structure of the movie.”
Good Morning, Usnavi
Back in the main thrust of the story, Usnavi is running his bodega – and introducing himself to the audience via the show’s opening number. “He lives with Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz), who's not really his abuela (grandma), but she's sort of the matriarch of the block,” says Chu. “She did not have kids, so she's adopted all the kids on the block, basically.”
Totally Smit-ten
The legendary Jimmy Smits steps into the bodega as Mr. Kevin Rosario. He runs his own cab company from the neighbourhood, but faces heartbreak when his daughter Nina (Leslie Grace) returns from Stanford University for the summer having secretly dropped out. “We are so lucky to have him,” says Chu of Smits. “What Michelle Yeoh brings in Crazy Rich Asians, he brings here – this gravitas, experience, his protective nature. Even though he is in opposition to his daughter of what he thinks is right for her, it's so much out of love. It's really hard for the audience to be on Nina's side, when you have that kind of love.”
The Loveliest Girl In The Place
Ah yes, the classic knock-a-box-of-Graham-Crackers-on-the-floor flirting technique. This is Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), who works in the local salon – and who Usnavi is trying to build up the courage to ask on a date. “Vanessa has a dream of moving downtown and becoming a fashion designer, which is new to our movie,” reveals Chu. “She wanted to move downtown in the show, but we didn't know why. Usnavi's always had a crush on her.”
Playing With The Boys
Usnavi isn’t alone in the bodega – his precocious young cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV) helps him run it (“He’s figuring out his life,” Chu says). Plus, he has frequent visits from friend Benny (Corey Hawkins), who works at Mr. Rosario’s cab company – and has a burning desire to strike up a relationship with Nina. Each character has their own wants and desires, whether it’s to try and stay in the neighbourhood despite the escalating rents, to move elsewhere, or to chase some other ambition. “Everybody has dreams, everybody has hope, everybody sees the changes in different way,” says Chu. “Some people are rebelling with it, some people survive and take advantage of it, other people complain about it. There are all these different perspectives of how you deal with change in a community.”
The Main Man
Here he is – Lin-Manuel Miranda himself. He has the small but important role of ‘Piragua Guy’, who serves refreshing shaved ice to the locals. “Piragua Guy was always the most fun place for Lin,” Chu explains. “It's the spiritual centre of the block, the representation of the struggle, just scraping by. And yet he has this unending positive engine in him. No matter what Mr. Softee's doing, no matter if they have power or not, every day he brings joy to that block by giving them that ice. That's what Lin does.”
The College Dropout
Here’s Nina, Mr. Rosario’s daughter, who carries the shame of having dropped out of college, and the fear of having to tell her nearest and dearest. She’s staring out at the George Washington Bridge, which connects right to the heart of Washington Heights. “The GWB is one of the biggest presences in the neighbourhood – you can see it, you can feel it, everyone’s coming in or leaving the city” says Chu. “Someone like Nina has grown up with this bridge looming over her. This idea that you can do anything, go anywhere – that's the way out, the yellow brick road. When you go out into the world and you come back defeated, that shadow continues to loom and haunt you.”
She Practically Raised Me
Meet Abuela Claudia, the barrio matriarch who means something to everyone living on the block. “She’s the clave beat, the heartbeat of the street,” Chu explains. “Dun-dun-dun, dun-dun – this beat is central to a lot of salsa music.” (Head back to the start of the trailer to hear the clave beat in action.) “She brings life to everybody. She says you're going to be ok, that these little details are important, to hold on to your heritage but not so tight that you can't see beyond.”
Love In This Club
Usnavi goes to a nightclub for a dance with Vanessa – but among rising tensions in the block and a sweltering heatwave, the night descends into a blow-up that, coupled with a block-wide blackout, forms the climax of the stage show’s first act. It’s still in the film, but perhaps less central to it. “There are other things going on,” says Chu. “I think it's more internal. This movie is not driven by plot, it's driven a lot by slices of life and internal growth, the revelations of each character. Everyone's going through their own arc, so it's a little less hinging on a moment for everybody.”
Flying The Flag
The image of flags is important for In The Heights’ celebration of heritage and the passing on of stories and traditions across generational divides – here Usnavi is handed a flag of the Dominican Republic, where he originally hails from. It’s an ethos that extended to production. “On set we were doing ‘Carnival Del Barrio’ and we had Lin up on the fire escape, and a hundred dancers and extras in the courtyard. We're singing, and I called cut – and nobody stopped,” Chu recalls. “Everyone kept celebrating and yelling and hugging each other. They looked up at Lin and started chanting, "Lin! Lin! Lin! Lin!" He's in tears, caught up there looking at these people who get to fly their flag in this scene – Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico. Everyone cried. I've never felt that on a movie ever before.”
Pool Runnings
In The Heights finds Chu re-teaming with Crazy Rich Asians production designer Nelson Coates – so it’s no surprise to see the same level of visual pop in the colours and compositions. “We went with Lin and Quiara [Alegría Hudes, writer] and said, ‘Show us, what are the most beautiful things here, what do you remember growing up?’ The neon colours of the cakes at the bakery, the patterns from different parts of Latin America, the amount of flags everywhere you look, it’s amazing. We just tried to bring the audience as if they lived there.”
Lin-ception
In the trailer’s most surprising visual, Benny and Nina go all Doctor Strange and run up the side of an apartment block. Chu won’t be drawn on which musical number it is, but does open up on the reality-distorting approach. “Each character is allowed to express how they feel in the moment,” he explains. “They're allowed to change the environment they're in, to draw on the screen, to do anything that best communicates how it feels to have a dream, to be down, to have a bittersweet goodbye, or a reunion. We fashioned it more like street dance, anything goes. That sequence is an extreme reflection of what we were able to do.”
In The Heights arrives in UK cinemas on 26 June 2020.