So I hear that Lin-Manuel Miranda has directed a movie musical and I’m like, ‘sweet, I’m in’. Five minutes in, I’m like, ‘wait… is this a musical bio-pic of the guy who created Rent?!’ I smile wide, and sink back into my comfy pillows, preparing for the absolute best time. The Rent soundtrack was such a massive part of my adolescence – I only saw the movie from 2005 a few times before an amateur play, but the movie has most the original cast, adding in Rosario Dawson and Tracie Thoms. I don’t know if I’ve ever thought about why Rent was so powerful to me – I guess it was the artistic optimism of a dilapidated bunch, living on the fringe, and being completely comfortable with who they are. Rent also launched the wickedly talented Idina Menzel, before she went into the unknown getting man-handled by John Travolta, and voicing Elsa, the Frozen Disney Queen. To have Lin-Manuel Miranda take the reins on such a project as this can only spell good things and spoiler alert… this movie is a rollicking success. If Jonathan Larson wasn’t an idol or inspiration for Miranda in musical theatre after creating Rent, before Miranda conjured Hamilton himself, and while he was small potatoes with a guest spot on House, then they’ve at least walked a similar path. What a perfect fit for Miranda to debut; tick, tick… Boom! from a Steven Levenson screenplay. And his direction; spot on!
With a showcase coming up, where the struggling playwright might receive funding to produce a musical he’s been working on for eight years, Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield) is high-strung and up to eleven. This is the tale of Rent creator Jonathan Larson before he ever considered Rent a hit. The movie is framed through a performance of his one-man show, tick, tick… Boom!, cutting to songs and action from his everyday life, as a developing writer during a more tumultuous time. Jonathan’s girlfriend Susan (Alexandra Shipp) is considering a job upstate, and Jonathan’s best friend Michael (Robin de Jesus) has quit acting, making good money ‘selling out’ at an advertising agency, which is a bug to bare for Jonathan. Jonathan must also think up a show-stopping hit for his female lead before the showcase begins, which is hours away – good luck! At times, tick, tick… Boom! feels very dislocated from Larson’s main accomplishment in Rent, but there are little nods along the way, like ‘pukie’ and the answering machine saying ‘Speeaak!’ with a droning tone, reminding us of who we’re talking about. tick, tick… Boom! can also be scattered narratively, and I wonder what the movie is like for someone with no sense of Rent.
But for me, I’ve never seen a retread of existing material done this brilliantly. tick, tick… Boom! is remarkable. I think the story and themes are like a mirror inverse of Rent, although I’m not all that accomplished in Rent to argue it – yet we do see that the purple-haired character lives while her boyfriend is the one dying of AIDS now, and now, dryly realising you’re ‘what you own’ becomes a plea to write ‘what you know’. The only newly introduced theme I can see is the dread of turning thirty, which is a real thing. I just turned 31, and I know that a year ago all the aspects of my life where I didn’t feel like I had my ducks in a row, lined up with baseball bats and beat the shit out of me, reminding me that my time to figure it out was figuratively over. There’s a Friends episode where Rachel turns 30 and goes into existential crisis, and I always thought that it was so unrealistic as a youngster – she was still hot, and nothing serious changed from one day to the next, but it does change, everything changes. Society’s pressure or your own expectations; whatever it is. Even Emma Watson said something about it a few years ago, so it’s a real phenomenon, and I love how it’s addressed in this movie. Jonathan is extremely busy, but it’s that looming thirty that’s really amping up his stress levels. It’s the tick-tick-boom of his prime that’s about to expire by Sunday. But I kind’ve wanted to talk about that title – isn’t the ‘tick, tick… boom’ also Jonathan slogging away at making it on Broadway until he will eventually write Rent and boom, he’s a sensation. And as the movie ends, with Jonathan’s ultimate fate forecast, it’s also that 525,600 minutes (and more) elapsing, until tick-tick becomes boom; your life is up, and your time is over. Make it great while you can.
Andrew Garfield – here’s your benchmark, Oscars. He is so incredible in this; not only does he have to play it emotionally straight through the real-life depiction of Larson, but he has to be believably surreal in the musical numbers in a way that’s only acceptable in musical drama. On the latter point, I don’t know how far you can push it before it appears cheesy or mockingly pretentious, and Garfield is in the pocket. Plus, he has to sing and dance. Garfield never went away after The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but I’ve missed him in recent years while he’s been living on the outskirts in smaller movies like Breathe and Under the Silver Lake. I’m so very grateful to see him again.
Likewise, Vanessa Hudgens in a smaller capacity, has a similar role with range. I’m bringing her up over the adorable Alexandra Shipp because just by being in tick, tick… Boom!, Hudgens makes a bigger point, and creates another personal privilege for me; as not only did I grow up with Rent, but I was part of the Disney boom that was High School Musical. Here, I think Hudgens presence speaks volumes towards what I think the movie is trying to put forward about pursuing an artistic spotlight and staring in these musicals, which is, an understanding that if you can hit the nail on the head, you live forever. And more than that, you’ll provide joy forever. I can still remember Gabriella from High School Musical making hand gestures and striking poses while she’s bleeding her heart out singing ‘When There Was Me and You’ in High School Musical, and although lame at the time, at least for me, and still my least favourite song of the show, actress Hudgens is still going for it, and creating a legacy that gets her a career, leads to a role in this movie, and reminds me of my youth; simpler times. (Boy, has she aged! No quicker than me, I might add, but she also gets to be forever seventeen singing ‘The Start of Something New’). I think tick, tick… Boom! also means to communicate the timelessness of theatre within the diner song, ‘Sunday’, bringing in legends of the theatre world for cameos – I only recognised Bernadette Peters and Daphne Rubin-Vega personally, but that scene is probably my favourite of the year. (My other favourite scene is the focus group meeting, with the other applicants encouraging Jonathan creativity instead of getting jealous – like, as if that would happen). The songs are all so punchy, and it’s a real treat trying to match them up to their Rent counterparts, which is surprisingly easier than you may think.
Bradley Whitford also does so little for an impactful result; I really don’t know Stephen Sondheim other than in name, but Whitford gives the honour a real presence. The same goes for Judith Light in her tiny contribution as Jonathan’s agent; Alexandra Shipp is great too, and I love Robin de Jesus – the tears welled in my eyes for Michael’s news, and Jonathan and Susan’s fitting breakup. As I say, the narrative is extensive, even calling itself out at one point, but I didn’t have a problem ‘turning off’ my brain and just flowing, because the movie’s freedom did that for me, in a way that musicals can do like no other. I love everything this movie is doing, and it’s left me energised and reinvigorated. My personal response to tick, tick… Boom! must also be metaphysical for me too, because as I write this, I look around my room and my floor’s a fucking mess, I have more books than I’m ever going to read, and I don’t know where all this writing leads to, but only that I feel it’s worth it. However, I just want to end this review with a definition of what HIV and AIDS are in my own words, as I understand it. Because, for ages, I didn’t know what it was exactly, since I was a baby when the AIDS epidemic was underway, and it’s a point of Rent to educate AIDS awareness, humanising the people who suffer. HIV is a virus that urges the immune system to react but can’t kill the virus, meaning the immune system eventually shuts down and breaks due to the strain. This allows for the state of AIDS, which leaves a person susceptible to any and all infection. A horrible way to go.
5.0
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