Review 634: Tick, Tick... Boom!

  

Based on the stage muscal of the same name by Jonathan Larson; On the brink of turning 30, promising theatre composer Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield) navigates love, friendship and the preassure to create something great before time runs out.

Tick, Tick... Boom! is very much one of these films that isn't really concerned with plot, it's more about the experience and how the experiences shaped Larson's career  It shows that fame doesn't come easily, Larson had evident talent but it still took him a considerable amount of time to be successful, 

At its core, Tick, Tick... Boom! is quintissentialy about what it is to devote ones life to ones art and how you build yourself around things that you love and people that you love.

Lin-Manuel Miranda's direction is bold and unobtrusive, a lot of shots during the musical numbers look really dynmaic and capture the toe tapping engery and muscal is meant to have. The cinematography is winsome and captures the spirit of New York in 1990. The production design is fantastic, the costumes are splendid, the musical numbers and exciting, immersive and exhilerating, The special effects are

Andrew Garfield delivers a passionate, energetic perfromance playing Jonathan Larson. He's spending his 20's writing this musical that he's trying to get anyone to be interested in and banging his head against the wall of his childhood dream while his friends grow up.

Alexandra Shipp is very strong playing Susan, 

Vanessa Hudgens is also pretty good here playing Karessa Johnson,