This movie has been adapted by screenwriter Steven Levenson from tick, tick … BOOM!, Larson’s autobiographical piece that came just before Rent, and told the story of his first major musical project: a wildly ambitious futurist fantasy called Superbia that almost no one seemed to get. (Miranda himself has a cameo as a short-order cook in the diner where Larson had to work as a waiter in his early years.) Larson was the composer who created the smash-hit 90s show Rent but died at 35 of an aortic failure, just before opening night, an almost unbearable metaphor for the backstage heartbreak of musical theatre.
(Shipp, incidentally, shares the big eleven o'clock number "Come to Your Senses" with Hudgens here, and the song works even better as a duet.) And I was thoroughly delighted by Judith Light as Jonathan's agent, and Whitford, who absolutely nails Sondheim's crooked smile and blasé arrogance.L in-Manuel Miranda gives us an unashamed sugar rush of showbiz rapture and showbiz solemnity in this heartfelt tribute to Broadway talent Jonathan Larson, played here by Andrew Garfield. The acting is heartfelt and deep all around I was particularly taken with the pathos that de Jesús and Shipp display as two central figures in Jonathan's life who understand that their relationships with him will never be as important as his relationship with a keyboard. And it would be remiss not to mention hair stylist Mandy Lyons and makeup designer Judy Chin, whose transformative work, particularly for Garfield as Larson and Whitford as Sondheim, is completely uncanny. Editors Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum give us numbers that are paced in time to the frenetic score, while slowing things down for the scene work.
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On a technical level, Miranda's film debut is loaded with the same kind of brash self-confidence and bravado that Larson has in spades as he introduces himself to strangers as "the future of musical-theater." He knows how to build into a song and lead out of one his cinematographer, Alice Brooks, allows us to linger on images and moments and whole people as they dance. Tick, Tick… is theater-geek catnip, and I was happily along for the ride the entire time.Īndrew Garfield and Alexandra Shipp in Tick, Tick.Boom! The estimable playwright Jonathan Marc Sherman in a wig and mustache as theatrical producer Ira Weitzman? Why not? A scene at the BMI musical theater workshop where Larson's classmates are played by everyone from Jeanine Tesori to Dave Malloy? That cameo-laden moment (and another one I don't want to spoil) practically made me levitate out of my seat. Danny Burstein and Judy Kuhn as Jonathan's parents? Sure. It says a lot about Miranda's clout as an artist and media figure that this movie, which would be niche even under the best circumstances, would not only get made at Netflix, but that Netflix would just let him run with it. At the center of it all is the looming workshop for Superbia at Playwrights Horizons, for which Jonathan is still struggling to write one great song. As Jon monologizes, we flashback to scenes from the preceding months and explore his struggle to find his place as an artist who waits tables, alongside a best pal (Robin de Jesús), who lives in luxury after giving up acting for advertising, and a neglected girlfriend (Alexandra Shipp), who has begun teaching dance instead of performing. It opens in medias res, with Jonathan (Andrew Garfield) and two backup singers, Roger and Karessa (Joshua Henry and Vanessa Hudgens, both at the top of their games), performing the original stage show at New York Theatre Workshop in 1992. This version - adapted by Dear Evan Hansen scribe Steven Levenson - takes place in two worlds. The playwright David Auburn ( Proof) is hired to adapt it into a three-actor, multi-character piece with the current title, which is the iteration that has since become canonical. Rent is an international phenomenon that Larson didn't live to see, having died from an aortic aneurysm the day previews were scheduled to begin off-Broadway. Andrew Garfield and Robin de Jesús in Tick, Tick.Boom!įor those readers who only know Larson as the creator of Rent, here's a quick primer on Tick, Tick…Boom! It originated under the titles 30/90 or Boho Days in the early 1990s as a rock monologue Larson would perform in the wake of both turning 30 and the unsuccessful workshop of a sci-fi musical he wrote called Superbia.
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