By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 1 cat
Director: Lin-Maneul Miranda
Starring: Alexandra Shipp | Andrew Garfield | Jonathan Marc Sherman | Joshua Henry | Robin de Jesus | Vanessa Hudgens
Country: united_states
Year: 2021
Running time: 115
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8721424/reference
Michael says: “I don’t want to tear apart a film that most people loved (I’m sorry Jana, I know you are one of those people) and my disdain for first-time feature film director, Lin Manuel Miranda (creator of the Broadway phenom, Hamilton) is no secret, but I found TICK, TICK… BOOM! pretty hard to take. I can’t lay all the blame on Miranda either, who delivers a perfectly fine film, directorially — perhaps a little bit repetitive or frenetic — as I have a lot of trouble with the source material.. or, as presented here, the source, period. This film is a fictionalized autobiography of Jonathan Larson, who wrote and composed the smash hit Broadway musical RENT! I was a RENT! fanatic when it first came out. I was swept up in its bohemian, liberal, optimism with a passion that i passed on to anyone I could. Sadly, i don’t think it has aged all that well, and find my past adoration a little embarrassing… or maybe just youthful and naive. TICK, TICK… BOOM! was the only other piece of work of Larson’s that was ever produced, albeit posthumously, because just before he received the massive acclaim for RENT!, he died. So it is, with a bit of irony, that so much of what drives BOOM is the main character, Larson’s irrational drive to become famous because his time is running out. That is something he didn’t know was actually true, but coming from this privileged, white man about to turn thirty, it’s just offensive. While those around him do their best to support, and yes, love him, he treats them callously to the point of disdain, all in the name of some elusive, creative recognition that he somehow feels he has the right to obtain. And don’t get me started on the songs, in fact, i’ll stop there, as I think you can tell I’m not a fan.
“As for Andrew Garfield’s performance, yes, the dude can sing. And he certainly brought to life a character so annoying that I can certainly continue to see his acting talent. The rest of the characters don’t get much opportunity to become real people… they seem more like characters from RENT! And yes, I will cop to enjoying the film’s musical number, ‘Sunday,” that apes Sondheim’s classic piece from Sunday in the Park with George, that here, takes place in a diner with a room fool of big-time Broadway cameos helping out, from Bernadette Peters to Chita Rivera, to Miranda himself. It’s the one bit of Broadway narcissism that works in this unnecessary film. 1 cat“