Movie Review - Tick, Tick... Boom! (2021)

Lin-Manuel Miranda makes his feature film debut as director. Surprise! It's a musical. Miranda is obviously the creator of Hamilton (2015), the smash-hit, Broadway musical, which garnered Miranda Tony Awards, a Grammy Award and even most recently an Emmy Award. Hamilton made him a star all over the world. He wrote the book, the lyrics and the music for that show. He has since written songs for other films. He was the lead actor in Hamilton and he has since gone to act in various things, even producing some films. Now, he's taking his skills to the director's chair. As a director, I don't have that many complaints. The pacing of the film, the staging of the musical sequences and the overall performances are all okay. If I take issue with this film, I take issue with the screenplay by Steven Levenson who wrote the book for the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen (2016) but who transitioned to television with his creation of FX's Fosse/Verdon (2019), which is a series about Bob Fosse, a deceased Broadway legend and his wife, Gwen Verdon.

It makes sense that Levenson would be picked to write this screenplay, given that it too is about a deceased Broadway legend. However, the protagonist here can't be put on the same level as Bob Fosse. Fosse has a career that lasted 40 years. He's responsible for at least a half-dozen Broadway shows that remain iconic to this day and he has a string of Tony Awards to his name to prove it. The protagonist here can't claim the same or even close. The protagonist here only has one credit to his name really. However, it's a work that towers in people's minds mainly because its creator died at a very young age, so that creator has a bit of a James Dean status among those within the Broadway community.

Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge and The Social Network) stars as Jonathan Larson, a 29-year-old waiter in New York City who is an aspiring playwright. He specifically has been working on a musical for the past eight years. He has an agent, but she hasn't really returned his calls, probably because he hasn't produced much of anything else in those past eight years. This one musical called "Superbia" has been his veritable obsession for the better part of a decade, but he's almost complete. He has one more song to craft before he presents the work to a group of producers whom he hopes will want to put the musical on Broadway.

This film is based on the life of a real person. Jonathan Larson was a real person. He was actually a waiter and aspiring playwright. If his name sounds vaguely familiar, that's because he's the creator of the Broadway musical Rent (1996). Unfortunately, Larson died before Rent premiered on Broadway. Rent did become one of the most successful Broadway shows ever. Specifically, it's considered one of the longest-running shows on Broadway, ranking 11 in the top 15 longest-running. Because of the success of Rent, this musical was created in his honor. It's based on a stage musical that never officially made it to Broadway and certainly didn't last as long as Rent, but it stood as a memorial to Larson and a testament to what people thought about him.

Robin de Jesús (The Boys in the Band and Gun Hill Road) co-stars as Michael, the best friend to Jonathan whom Michael has known since they were 8-years-old. Michael is Latino and gay. He was an aspiring actor, hoping to make it in New York theater. He never made it. He instead went into advertising, becoming a very successful advertising executive. He's now doing very well, at least financially better than Jonathan. The film is basically the struggle that Jonathan is having, as well as the anxiety he's feeling about whether he's going to have to give up on his dream of working in musical theater and get a job in advertising or marketing like Michael.

Of course, films about tortured artists or tortured geniuses are a dime-a-dozen. From Basquiat (1996), Pollock (2000), Frida (2002), Adaptation (2002) and Synecdoche, New York (2008), there have been a slew of these kinds of films. The last two I listed were from Charlie Kaufman who particularly liked the subject. Yet, so many writers have written about writers and the process and the pain of writing. This one is no different. This film is based on a one-man show that Larson created, which seemed like it was him legitimately trying to reflect and possibly comment on his life. As rendered in this film though, it instead feels as if Larson is being really naval gazing and somewhat narcissistic.

Vanessa Hudgens (Rent: Live and Grease: Live) plays Karessa Johnson, an actress who is helping Jonathan with his presentation, in that she's performing his songs. At one point, she walks into a scene and calls Jonathan "boy genius." I suppose it makes sense for her to be enamored with Jonathan's work in the context here. However, at a later point, Michael basically calls him one-of-a-kind, comparing him basically to a genius. It rather rubbed me the wrong way that this film has Jonathan surrounded by people of color and queer people, and the majority of them fawn and flatter him.

Yes, Michael is his friend and he's trying to be supportive, but the film positions Jonathan as this unique and one-of-a-kind artist that's somehow different or better than anyone else at the time or on Broadway in 1990, the year in which this film is set. I find that difficult to accept, especially in the wake of Radha Blank's The 40-Year-Old Version (2020), which was an incredible film that in many ways tackles similar themes as this one, while also being a critique of Broadway. Blank's film addresses the fact that talented artists who are Black and female often don't get the opportunities or advantages as their white and male counterparts do in the theater world. Those that do are often hamstrung by various forces. This film feels ignorant of those forces or that potential discrimination.

The film does knock Jonathan down a few pegs, as his work, as he states from the beginning, has been rejected numerous times. I'm not sure if that's because the work really wasn't that worthy or if it's the film signaling that the people who rejected it were just short-sighted and for some reason didn't recognize genius when they first saw it. The vibe that I get from the film would suggest the latter, which I can't conclude from just one show that he did. Miranda himself has been deemed a genius based on one show, that of Hamilton, so he perhaps feels a kinship with Larson. Who knows what Larson would have done had he lived or the great works he could have created. Based on what we have now, I would still argue that Miranda is the better talent, but the point is how many Mirandas are out there that at the time of Larson's brief rise never got the chance?

I wish this film were about Michael, a character that seems more interesting and less of the neurotic stereotype that is Jonathan. In one scene, Michael says he's a mediocre actor. As portrayed by de Jesús, that scene rang false, especially since I know de Jesús is a three-time Tony Award nominee for acting. Garfield is a Tony Award-nominee for Angels in America. Clearly, he's a good actor but he felt too manic and all over the place here and whose performance I preferred in The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) than here.

This film does have a Bohemian aspect, of artists pursuing their art, mixed with some stuff from Michael and the HIV/AIDS epidemic that ultimately felt derivative of Rent, which makes sense since both productions came from the same person. However, here it feels like this film does those subjects less justice and are present as more of an origin story for Rent, which this film devotes no  time to Larson's process in creating that property. I will say that I did like that Miranda used all of of his influence to stage a number that included Broadway stars both past and present, including former cast members from Hamilton and the original Rent. Yet, legends like André de Shields and Bernadette Peters were also present. That was at least cool.

Rated PG-13 for some strong language, suggestive material and drug references.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 1 min.

Available on Netflix.