Let’s take a look at musical films in 2021. To be honest, more went right for the musical films category than what went wrong.
Good news or bad news first? Let’s get the bad out of the way.
Dear Evan Hansen – The wrong musical film in 2021
I wrote an article on how Dear Evan Hansen was one of my favorite stage musicals a while ago, well, the movie was, to say the least, disastrous.
The elephant in the room is obviously Ben Platt, who is 27 last year, playing a high schooler. While that’s not old, he doesn’t exactly look super young. When he played the character on Broadway in 2015, he was only 22. Also, the stage is a medium that is a lot more forgiving to this sort of discrepancy than film. There are no close-ups to your face on stage, and live theater audiences are generally already in a state of make-believe. In film, that’s not how it works.
The changes are also a little bit baffling. The decision to cut out the original intro song, “Anybody Have A Map”, which sets a tone and documents the struggles of Evan and Connor’s families, was one that made little to no sense.
I didn’t love the changes to the ending, either. They made Evan a sympathetic character by having him admit to his faults and coming clean, which did not happen in the stage show. I absolutely think the original ending where Evan had to live with that guilt forever, and reflect upon it, discomforted by it, is one where we can actually have some sort of pity for him. To me, Evan is not a sympathetic character and never will be.
Nitpicks
Some of the transitions are also so awkward, and I’m not sure if it’s just a product of the script not working on the big screen, or poor execution. The times Evan breaks into song (For Forever, Words Fail) in front of Zoe’s family seemed so mistimed that half of my theater erupted in laughter.
With all that being said, the one thing I do like about it is the addition of a character arc for Alana. She was basically a stereotype in the stage play. One we all knew about, the overly ambitious student president who seemed manipulative to achieve her goals. The Anonymous Ones was a good number and helped depict some of the teen loneliness in a realistic way. The ending where Evan managed to find tapes of Connor to send to Connor’s family was also a nice touch. The song A Little Closer is also a good addition.
While Dear Evan Hansen fell flat, there were many standouts this year.
For now, we will talk about In The Heights.
I loved this one.
Let me just spoil the next part for you. Musical films in 2021 part two will be on Tick, Tick, Boom and West Side Story. I mean, is that really a surprise?
Anyway, back on topic. What made In The Heights special?
In The Heights – A musical film done right
I have actually never seen the stage version before this, so this film is the first time I have been exposed to the story.
I think there were three things that stood out to me: Relatability, diversity of the songs, and cinematography and imagery.
Relatability
The characters in the story are all very relatable. They are every day people with every day struggles and dreams. Although I will admit that the resolution of some of the character arcs felt a bit premature. Nevertheless, they are very real. Nina’s struggles with impostor syndrome and fear of not living up to expectations for a child prodigy proved to be an encaptivating tale told in Breathe. Vanessa’s dreams and daydreams of moving uptown and becoming a fashion designer while she worked at the salon was a familiar one to those of us being stuck at a place in life when we want to be elsewhere. Of course, then there is Usnavi, with his little sueñito of building a life back in the Dominican Republic.
I really liked the word sueñito, meaning “little dreams”. I think these sueñitos were what made these characters so alive to me.
Song Diversity
To be honest, anyone listening to this would probably draw the comparison of the musical style to Hamilton. Lin Manuel-Miranda just has his own style, but within this musical itself there were songs of vastly different styles. The magnificent but functional intro song In the Heights introduced us to the characters around the block. The two songs Breathe and It Won’t Be Long Now enlightened us on Nina and Vanessa’s emotional struggles. The light-hearted “96,000” was a welcome diversion from how heavy some other moments in this musical felt.
Unfortunately, I feel like whenever a stage show gets adapted to a film, some of the best songs always get cut out. In this case, “Sunrise”, a great song that deepened Benny and Nina’s relationship, did not make it to the film.
Cinematography
The cinematography and the imagery in the movie really helped to shape the culture and the setting of the story. I especially loved the shot at the end of the number “In The Heights” where we see Usnavi through a window. The reflections of the dancers surrounded his face.
Another shot I loved is when Vanessa is deep in her thoughts at end of “It Won’t Be Long Now”, we see her look up and she sees this.
The camera pans around the buildings as she watches the little fabric pieces fall down. Some of the visual imagery in this movie are just very satisfying.
There we have it, a good and bad movie from the crazy amount of produced musical films in 2021. What were some of your favorites this year?