An average movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since I have a weak spot for Melissa Barrera, I still wanted to check it out. I remember it well, even though it was a critical success, it was still a box-office flop when it was released. Well, to be honest, I really had a hard time to care about the damned thing after all and I’m not surprised that the mainstream audience eventually ignored it. I mean, it is not that it was bad, not at all, it’s actually a well made musical with a strong theme, it’s just that I never saw anything really remarkable about it. Maybe it worked better on the stage where it was super successful (I actually really loved ‘Hamilton’ also from Lin-Manuel Miranda which I saw on Disney+). I think the main issue was that they didn’t focus only on one or two characters but instead on a whole group of characters living in Washington Heights. As a result, all their respective subplots were deluded and not really interesting because they all felt generic mostly because they were barely developed. Furthermore, Usnavi’s tale was, in my opinion, rather bewildering. Indeed, the whole point for most immigrants when they leave their homeland is either to escape persecution or find better living conditions. Since his parents left the Dominican Republic, this country didn’t become really rich (It did have one of the fastest-growing economy in the world over the last 20 years though) so going back there was a rather weird move and slightly disrespectful for his parents who went through so much hardship so he could have a better future in the US. To make it even worse, at the last minute, the guy cancelled the whole thing which made everything he went through rather pointless. There was also the fact that I’m not familiar with Washington Heights but was it a good thing that he decided to stay in this neighborhood? But, in this case, why did Vanessa want so bad to live somewhere else in New York then? Anyway, to conclude, I really loved the idea to focus on this vibrant sparkling Latina community but, to be honest, I didn’t really connect with this movie. It is still worth a look though. 

6/10