tick, tick… BOOM!
Directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda (his directorial debut), starring Andrew Garfield, Alexandra Shipp, Vanessa Hudgens, Robin de Jesus.
tick, tick… BOOM! is the name of an autobiographical musical Jonathan Larson started writing in 1989 and so is a prescient piece considering his untimely death at the age of 35, a fact which we quite startlingly learn through voice-over narration at the outset of the film. As you would expect from Miranda, there is a LOT of exposition in these first few minutes. We’re introduced to the death of a character we don’t know and yet are hooked because Garfield plays Larson with such intensity and heart that we can’t help but keep watching. The film’s frenetic pacing matches Larson’s own fear that as 30 approaches, he won’t have a musical masterpiece in his repertoire. Add to this the repetition of “tick, tick”, whether spoken, sung, or as a sound device, and the urgency becomes undeniable. There are absolutely beautiful moments that illustrate ideas only film can capture, most notably the underwater pool scene that inspires that one last song Larson needs to complete his first musical. We also get moments that show the how city life, with all its grit, pain, hunger, poverty and sickness (the height of the AIDS epidemic), becomes part of the fabric of life — and it turns out, the impetus for Larson’s greatest posthumous hit, Rent. Miranda saw a performance of tick, tick… BOOM! when he was senior at Wesleyan University, and according to his account, it inspired him to start writing musicals. So this movie is a kind of a loving, endearing thank you note to Larson — and with Garfield turning a brilliant performance as he channels Larson’s infectious energy, it works on every level.
Available now on Netflix.
