Tick, Tick...Boom!

“In a vacuum, Tick, Tick...Boom! does everything right.”

Title: Tick, Tick...Boom! (2021)
Director: Lin-Manuel Miranda 👨🏽🇺🇸
Writer: Screenplay by Steven Levenson 👨🏼🇺🇸 based on the musical by Jonathan Larson 👨🏼🇺🇸

Reviewed by Li 👩🏻🇺🇸

Technical: 4/5

Soon after releasing his esteemed Broadway hit Hamilton for streaming audiences, Lin-Manuel Miranda voiced a chipper kinkajou in Vivo (2021) and translated his musical In the Heights (2021) to the silver screen under the direction of Jon M. Chu. But he’s not done yet.

Released on Netflix earlier this month, Tick, Tick...Boom! marks Miranda’s debut turn behind the camera. He gamely pulls off a tricky structure that follows Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield), the writer-composer of iconic theater classic Rent, as he switches between addressing a stage audience and reenactments of his life’s story.

The postmodern structure takes some getting used to, hurried along by assertive editing that will thrill some and frustrate others with it’s go go go! pace that swirls around Garfield’s Manic Pixie Dream Boy take on Jon Larson. For my part, I’ll always take a ballsy swing over something safe, and Miranda’s playful interpretation of a stage-to-screen musical feels like a messy, glorious success.

At its core, Larson’s music and lyrics elevate the entire film. Much has been said of Garfield’s exuberant performance, and I agree he commits to the task with energy to spare. In addition, supporting actors—Alexandra Shipp in particular, as Jon’s girlfriend Susan—round out fantastic performances. A memorable diner scene, with laugh-out-loud lyrics about Sunday brunch that ring no less true 30 years after their inception, especially hits hard given the deluge of beloved musical theater cameos. Who doesn’t love a familiar face (or ten)?

In short, this movie panders to its audience: Fans of Rent, Broadway zealots, and adults having mid-life crises (or some combination thereof) will all find pieces of themselves in this film.

Gender: 3.5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES

Cinema is no stranger to the exploits of male “geniuses,” and Jon—with his wild hair, manic eyes, and slovenliness—falls perfectly into the mold. He’s a dick to his girlfriend Susan and painfully snarky (and absent in turns) to his best friend Michael (Robin de Jesús). And while the story does a fairly good job of giving Jon repercussions for his selfish behavior, it’s still no fun to watch Susan shoulder the massive burden of dating a man who is incapable of giving her a simple answer to something that will alter the trajectory of her entire career.

In a micro-example of how Tick, Tick...Boom! prioritizes Jon’s career over those of the women around him, Jon drags his heels on completing a song for weeks, leaving one scant hour for his lead female vocalist to learn, practice, and perform it in front of industry royalty the likes of Stephen Sondheim (Bradley Whitford). Not a moment of thought is given to Karessa (Vanessa Hudgens) as a human being; instead, she magically pulls off a stunning solo, and Jon experiences no pushback, not even a frown, for having made her job (and his band’s job) incredibly difficult.

On the other hand, Rosa Stevens (Judith Light) pleasantly breaks the above norm. As Jon’s hard-nosed agent, she marches to the beat of her own schedule and has key connections that Jon swoons over. It feels validating to watch her decades of experience translate into a position of power as she shares useful, but never ingratiating, advice to her aspiring young client.

Race: 3/5

Characters of color include Susan, played by Shipp who is biracial, and Michael, played by Puerto Rican actor de Jesús. They hold important roles with welcome backstories, even if those backstories go largely unexplored by virtue of Jon sucking up all the oxygen in the narrative. In background roles, a realistic crowd of Black and Brown denizens rub elbows with malnourished white creatives in ‘90s New York City—West SoHo, specifically. Afro-Latina MJ Rodriguez rounds out the supporting cast with her signature blend of femininity and no-bullshit demeanor as Carolyn, Jon’s friend and coworker at the Moondance Diner. And while folks seem to either love Lin-Manuel Miranda or hate him, there’s no denying the importance of having a Latino perspective—even if it’s one you disagree with—behind the lens to corral the complicated stories of vulnerability and resilience of the aforementioned characters.

However, not all characters of color are treated with dimensionality. The vocalists who staff Jon’s musical workshop get particularly shortchanged. Hudgens—multiracial with Filipino and Native American ancestry—and Black actor Joshua Henry play little more than smiling, singing cardboard cutouts. While it isn’t fair to ask one movie to entertain multiple storylines, the way Hudgens’ Karessa cheerfully accepts Jon’s late composition (described above) could easily have been turned into a more appropriate reaction of frustration. And Henry’s dark-skinned features get drowned out by overly backlit scenes, a lighting issue pointed out by writer Robert Daniels that could’ve been easily avoided through any number of existing techniques.

These may seem like nitpicks, but they exacerbate the bigger issue: Tick, Tick...Boom! shines (yet another) spotlight on a white ingenue whose success leans on the support of his Black and Latino friends and colleagues. Yet these same people of color receive little to no support in return.

Bonus for LGBTQ: +0.50

Miranda’s film casts out actors like de Jesús, Rodriguez, or Ben Levi Ross into sympathetic roles as Jon’s friends who are thankfully depicted as having their own lives to lead. But something feels off about centering a straight and cisgender white man in a story that uses the AIDS crisis (and the mostly queer, Black, and Brown individuals directly affected by it) as a backdrop. Yes, this was Larson’s story to tell and it’s no small trauma to have multiple friends pass away before they’ve reached their 30s. But accolades could not have come to Larson without their stories, something the film itself acknowledges as his sci-fi rock musical Superbia never found full production, while Tick, Tick...Boom! and Rent—both of which heavily feature the AIDS epidemic—made him a smash hit.

It does help to know that no matter who’s getting the lion’s share of the wealth, actors like de Jesús and Rodriguez are able to rise up too. In an interview with Murtada Elfadl of Into, de Jesús shares his personal experience:

Black and brown folks, especially in New York City, were completely erased from the AIDS epidemic conversation. It’s very healing for our ancestors, to insert me into this period piece as a queer Latino artist. To show that we exist. Jonathan doesn’t even know that his allyship just keeps on.

This enduring allyship affected Rodriguez too. In 2011, playing genderqueer character Angel in an Off-Broadway revival of Rent “ignited her career and propelled her to fully explore her transition and her gender identity journey.” Actions speak louder than words, and making space for queer actors to shine—and get paid—will always be a positive thing.

Mediaversity Grade: B- 3.67/5

In a vacuum, Tick, Tick...Boom! does everything right. But it’s difficult to ignore how time after time, production and marketing budgets are thrown at films that fetishize white male “genius” while these same stories leave women and people of color as punching bags for one man’s creative journey. The Social Network (2010), Imitation Game (2014), Dune (2021), Netflix’s Mank (2020)—the list goes on. So while I happily enjoyed Miranda’s go-big-or-go-home directorial debut, I’m still holding out to see studios throw that same amount of weight behind stories of past prodigies who might happen to look a little different than the Andrew Garfields, the Gary Oldmans, and the Timothée Chalemets of the world.

Like Tick, Tick…Boom!? Try these other musicals.

Grade: BLiNovember 24, 2021Great for: LGBTQ