tick, tick...Boom!

Before Jonathan Larson wrote the masterpiece RENT, one of my favorite musicals of all time, he wrote tick, tick...Boom!, an autobiographical show about the fear of running out of time before achieving success.  Even though I wasn't very familiar with this musical I was really excited for the movie adaptation because it is directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda!  I was able to see it last night and my reaction was a bit mixed.  Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield) has been working on a musical called Superbia for the past eight years but he can't seem to finish a song needed for a key moment in the second act.  To pay the bills he works as a waiter at the Moondance Cafe on the weekends while he writes during the week but he is starting to feel discouraged because he hasn't achieved success before his 30th birthday, which is imminent, like his idol Stephen Sondheim (Bradley Whitford).  His best friend Michael (Robin de Jesus) has already given up on his dream to become an actor by taking a job in advertising and has moved into an apartment in a high-rise building with a doorman.  His girlfriend Susan (Alexandra Shipp) is thinking about giving up her dream of being a dancer to take a job in the Berkshires.  Freddy (Ben Ross), another waiter at the diner, is dying of AIDS. He wonders if he is just wasting his time trying to achieve his dream. However, despite fact that his agent Rosa (Judith Light) hasn't returned his calls for the past year, his mentor Ira (Jonathan Marc Sherman) has arranged a workshop of Superbia for prospective producers.  When it isn't the success he hoped it would be, Rosa tells him to write what he knows and tick, tick...Boom! is the result.  Interspersed between Jonathan's story is a concert of tick, tick...Boom! that he performs with his friends Roger (Joshua Henry) and Karessa (Vanessa Hudgens).  I loved so many things about this movie (but I didn't love it as a whole).  Garfield gives an absolutely brilliant performance, definitely the best of his career, and I was so impressed with his singing and dancing.  He should definitely be in the mix come awards season. As a theatre nerd I loved all of the cameos by Broadway stars past and present.  I won't spoil them because they are so much fun to spot but I have to mention that I just about lost my mind when I saw Adam Pascal (I love him).  Even though this movie is not about RENT, I loved seeing its genesis in many of the characters and songs, particularly "Boho Days."  Unfortunately, I didn't love some of Miranda's artistic choices because the narrative is very frenetic and messy.  Most scenes are performed at such a fever pitch that when the action finally slows down for an emotional reckoning it feels really hollow.  The story jumps back and forth between the development of the musical and the performance of it very haphazardly and this is sometimes confusing, especially since musical numbers take place in both timelines (big production numbers in the former and simple concert performances in the latter).  It actually took me a while to figure out what was going on whenever there was a scene of Larsen performing on stage.  I liked this movie, and would definitely recommend it to musical theatre fans, but I am a bit disappointed because I wanted to love it.