The creative process can be soul-deadening.
We in the outside world tend to think solely in terms of a result. For example, Rent was a smash success from the nanosecond it opened on Broadway in April 1996, and it brought creator Jonathan Larson the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, along with Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score, along with a boatload of other honors.
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| While working his day job at the Moodance diner, Jonathan (Andrew Garfield) suddenly finds himself dancing with — among many others — Bernadette Peters, during a high-spirited production number titled "Sunday." |
Like most so-called “overnight successes,” Larson was anything but, as this musical reveals. tick, tick … BOOM! got its start as a one-man autobiographical “rock monologue” initially titled Boho Days, and performed by Larson at the Village Gate and New York Theater Workshop on December 14, 1992. The piece is a painfully autobiographical account of the struggle he endured while spending eight years writing his first professional musical, Superbia.
Not quite a decade later, tick, tick … BOOM! was reconstructed by playwright/director David Auburn as a three-person show at New York’s Jane Street Theater, where on November 11, 1992, a 21-year-old theater major named Lin-Manuel Miranda attended a performance.
We all know what happened to him.
It’s therefore not merely serendipitous, but absolutely proper, that Miranda make his feature film directing debut with this screen adaptation. And — no surprise — he has done a superb job.
The film is anchored by a sensational lead performance from Andrew Garfield, starring as Larson: a mesmerizing blend of acting chops and heartfelt singing, given that he anchors or solos most of the musical numbers. It’s the sort of exhilarating effort that transcends artifice; not even half an hour into this film, we’re firmly convinced that it is Larson on the screen.
Steven Levenson’s screenplay follows Jon during the eight frenzied days leading up to a crucial workshop performance of Superbia. This coincides with the looming arrival of his 30th birthday: a milestone that weighs heavily, because he regards it as the last-gasp chance for being “discovered” at the appropriate point of what he hopes will become a career.
The pressure of this “ticking clock” — which we occasionally hear, albeit faintly, when it isn’t overwhelmed by the frequently passionate songs — acts as a metronome for everything else being balanced: his day job as a waiter at the Moondance Diner; the dwindling relationship with girlfriend Susan (Alexandra Shipp), whose desire to pursue her own ballet career is pulling her elsewhere; and the decision by longtime best friend Michael (Robin de Jesús) to abandon the acting grind for a stable, 9-to-5 job in advertising … which Jon regards as a sell-out (while nonetheless being envious of Michael’s doorman apartment).
And, as these eight days pass, the advancing specter of the AIDS epidemic also looms large.
The story advances, in breathtaking fashion, as Miranda, Levenson and editors Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum deftly cut between Jon’s deeply personal workshop song monologues and his real-world activities: all of which convey the grinding frustration of trying to be creative amid the cacophony of other responsibilities. Garfield veers from hyper-enthusiastic to crestfallen, mockingly playful to emotionally shattered, often in the blink of an eye.
He delivers the many vibrant rock anthems with pizzazz, but — for my money — his best singing moment is a solo of the achingly poignant ballad “Why,” accompanying himself on piano, late at night in an empty stadium. Never before has the phrase “Hey, what a way to spend a day” resonated with such emotional impact. (For my money, this song is as tender a passage-of-time tone-poem as Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle.”)
Shipp’s Susan is warm, earthy and preternaturally cute; her coquettish, sidelong glance is to die for. Shipp’s scenes with Garfield are sweet, touching and painfully persuasive; Jon and Susan clearly love each other, but both realize that their paths are about to fork forever.
De Jesús’ Michael is the pluperfect best friend: patient, tolerant, wryly amusing and always there when needed. De Jesús and Garfield share the natural comfort that is to be expected of childhood best friends who’ve remained crucial to each other ever since.
Vanessa Hudgens, now a very long way from High School Musical, exercises her own formidable vocal chops as Karessa, Jon’s muse: the actor who inspires him to write new songs. Purple-tressed MJ Rodriguez is a hoot as the playfully snarky Carolyn, Jon’s friend and co-worker at the Moondance Diner.
Bradley Whitford pops up briefly as no less than Stephen Sondheim, whose encouragement proves consequential at a key moment during Jon’s artistic journey.
Speaking of Sondheim, watch closely during the “Sunday” diner scene, which incorporates bits of “Sunday in the Park with George” and features an impressive wealth of famous Broadway faces.
Those unfamiliar with the arc of Larson’s career will be gob-smacked by the revelations within this film’s final few minutes: as tragic a bit of poetic irony as could be imagined.
Miranda has succeeded — grandly — with what must have been his primary goal: to properly honor the man whose work proved inspirational at a key moment in his own career.
Hey, what a way to spend two hours.
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