tick, tick... BOOM!
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
It has been quite a year for Lin-Manuel Miranda, especially during the aftermath of Hamilton. In the Heights took the summer by storm, and Encanto is opening up to rave reviews this weekend. Then, there is his directorial debut: his adaptation of tick, tick… BOOM!. Ever the Broadway music obsessive, Miranda has likely been the number one reason why the fanbase has multiplied in the ways that it has in recent years, and part of that is not just through his image of the culture, but for the deconstruction of it as well. It only makes sense, first off, that he would be the go-to choice to resurrect Jonathan Larson’s musical, and also that he would use this opportunity to really expand what a stage production can look like on the big screen. One of the most immersive examples of this kind of filmmaking since West Side Story, tick, tick… BOOM! really places you in the audience of this production, whilst keeping you within Larson’s mind to feel every experience of his as he describes them. This includes indulging in the long pauses after musical numbers to embrace the briefest of silences before thunderous applause erupts (only here, life just keeps going), and even a moment where the walls of a cafe lower down to turn a mundane life into a showstopper. Of course, the most obvious clue is that much of tick, tick… BOOM! is shot to feel like a live recording of the actual play, so the cuts from reality to the story are a really nice juxtaposition (especially since the feature itself is a true story, or at least true from Larson’s perspective, as the film aptly points out).
All of this is anchored by Andrew Garfield, who has done quite a bit in his career, and yet here he makes you feel like he was meant to be a musical kid. It almost feels like he was the only person to play Larson, particularly with how seamlessly the line separating performance from life gets blurred. While other performers shine around him, this is still Garfield’s show through and through, and I’d argue he even steals the limelight away from Miranda at times. There’s something special about seeing a strong cinematic performance as well as the “on stage” side (which feels like the real Broadway experience) to provide additional perspectives. It’s the kind of performance that almost feels unfair come awards season time: there aren’t any roles like this, so how can many other performances compete? Even when Garfield is on stage, I don’t feel like he is in a different reality, but instead someone who has already lived the entire film reflecting with his best face and voice, because it’s showtime.
Andrew Garfield delivers one of his best performances in tick, tick… BOOM!.
Otherwise, the film is quite standard and by-the-numbers tonally, but it’s the kind of work where all of the key musical drama ingredients feel necessary, as to evoke the very specific Broadway feeling that Miranda is gunning for; you can’t replicate these tropes without actually having them. Furthermore, tick, tick… BOOM! goes the extra mile (or at least a number of feet further) with this sense of fluidity, allowing us to course through the two sides of the film in a very cinematic sense: lingering sounds from previous scenes, interesting jump cuts, and other tricks that could only exist in this form. Miranda makes this version worth our while. There’s the presence of the ending of life throughout the film as well, particularly with Larson’s premature death announced from the start, and the AIDS crisis claiming the lives of many loved ones around him. The titular sound is the constant waiting for life to wrap up, or for something to happen to make it all worthwhile. Larson’s questioning of “what is this all for?” became his iconic play (only second to his opus Rent), and Miranda helped his discoveries continue with this latest film (and just in the nick of time, when musicals are making a comeback, and more youngsters are listening than decades before).
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.