Tick, Tick… Boom!
Directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda and adapting the semi-autobiographical musical of the same name from Jonathan Larson (of RENT fame), Tick, Tick… Boom! stars Andrew Garfield as a fictionalized version of Jonathan Larson on the verge of turning 30 in 1990. He’s struggling with finishing a sci-fi-rock musical called Superbia that he’s been working on for eight years, all while balancing poverty, the needs of his girlfriend Susan (Alexandra Shipp), and a host of friends (including Robin de Jesús’ Michael). He’s obsessive with a strong case of writers’ block around a final yet-to-be-completed song, and a large proportion of the film sees him obsessively struggle through his writer’s block while the ticking clock of turning 30 gnaws away at him. That is, until other concerns come to the fore.
Tick, Tick… Boom is a buoyant, joyous musical. Even in the midst of angst, stress, and pressure, the characters are in love with art and music, making the best of much of what is in their world. It’s contagious. The film overall will likely have a lot of resonance for anyone working towards a creative career, but the struggles with poverty, relationships, and other real world issues against a host of pressures really help the musical land as an entry with both joyous highs and weighty emotional lows.
Andrew Garfield is an exceptional Jonathan Larson. He’s quirky, sometimes myopic, obsessively shallow but brilliant, and yet he’s a charismatic neurotic figure that easily elicits sympathy. Garfield turns in an excellent performance… he loses himself in the role and exhibits an exceptional emotional range for the character. It’s one of the finest turns in his otherwise excellent career. Two other standouts are Alexandra Shipp as the complex and supportive girlfriend Susan whose singing ability and emotional range are both extraordinary, and Robin de Jesús as Michael, whose performance is one of the year’s best supporting. He isn’t given as much screen time as the performance deserves, but every frame of it is worth watching.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s direction boasts a number of virtues. There’s a lot of fervent energy of the kind a musical largely needs. The technical factors come together, the musical numbers are charming and sound great, and its overall well structured with smartly chosen divergences from the source material. Miranda shows his talent as a director here, and as a film debut it shows how much life there is in the genre. At the same time, while it’s a lovely, enjoyable film there are a few issues that impede its overall potential.
There are some fantastic set pieces at a couple moments (I won’t spoil them but you’ll know one particularly special number once you see it), but a lot of the musical takes place in limited, constrained, and repetitive locations. That’s an artifact of the source material to some degree, but it’s easy to feel it in the film. It also feels a bit strange at times that we spend most of the film watching someone’s self-absorption before the final act turn… and while the film does take their relative ignorance in the scheme of things seriously, it does serve to make one wonder why they’re watching a musical with THESE themes at all in the evident face of such suffering. The disparity in focus between the majority of the protagonist’s artistic troubles and the comparably under-explored yet weighty final situations also contributes towards a film that feels like an oddly structured bait and switch with a misplaced focus at times.
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Beyond questions around the source material, another instance of missed potential is the casting and under-utilization of Vanessa Hudgens as Karessa Johnson. She’s a welcome presence in every scene she’s in, she has charisma and sings beautifully, but her character is entirely neglected: she’s mainly used as a background singer that the protagonist sort-of knows. She has no developed character at all, to any degree, period, and it’s a shame to cast someone so excellent in that role (who anchors two of the film’s finest songs) and then make them the equivalent of a plot device music box the protagonist pulls out as a whim. It’s a stunning choice that echoes the other concerns of the film’s missed potential.
These criticisms aside, Tick, Tick… Boom! is a thoroughly charming affair that packs an emotional wallop at the end. Andrew Garfield absolutely shines (as does Robin de Jesús), the musical numbers have adeptly landed energy and command of tone, and the script drives forward and doesn’t meander. It’s easy to get lost in it. It certainly underuses its visual potential as well as a talent like Hudgens, but she manages to shine somehow anyway. Altogether Tick, Tick… Boom! remains perhaps the best musical yet in a year otherwise crowded with them.
