rattleNwoolypenguin said: "I finally saw it. This was also my first exposure to Tick Tick Boom beyond "30/90"
I thought it was sweet but not satisfying? And anti climactic. It's going to seem like I'm about to be really critical of it-but that also doesn't mean I thought it was garbage. I'm grateful it exists.
I think it's so tough in how do you adapt the element of Jonathan dying respectfully and not in a navel gazing way. I felt like what they did was so rushed and you didn't get the real impact of-
this is an artist who finally hit his big break, only to tragically suddenly die and not be able to experience the success of it in any form.
And of course there's a pulpy oscar batey way to showcase that and maybe it was the better option that they didn't. The same way Spielberg didn't show the actual Lincoln assassination happen in his film about Lincoln.
But the concept of combining Jonathan's Tick Tick Boom with essentially a mini Jonathan Larson biopic that doesn't even touch the arc of the creation of Rent- I dunno, it just made me want another 45 minutes of the movie focused on him finding his stride with Rent.
I also think the relationship with his girlfriend-it just didn't work for me. It felt so pedestrian in how it was portrayed and I just didn't get a sense of a deeper pathos with it. I got what they were going for with "Come to Your Senses" which I do think is a decent song, but I still didn't feel invested in THEM.
I also think they didn't know fully what to do with Robin's HIV storyline. I just felt like...we were left to feel bad for him but the film didn't invest that heavily in following what's gonna happen with him past Jonathan's perspective. It ended up feeling more emotionally manipulative and using Robin for Jonathan's arc.
Without question the best moment is "Sunday" what a beautiful direction and homage to Steve (that Bernie moment made me tear up immediately) I think if anything lingers from this movie it will be that sequence.
I'm genuinely so happy this worked so well for a lot of people. A lot of it was really charming as was Andrew. I love the idea of Netflix adapting more obscure musicals into movies that big Hollywood studios won't gamble on.
And I definitely could see how on repeat viewings enjoying it more.
I agree with some of your critiques and have written about some things I didn’t think worked, including the relationship with Susan. And I understand why many people would want to see more specific references to Rent, his posthumous success.
But I think the film works better without it. As it is, Larson is shown observing some of things that went into Rent - sometimes more effectively than Rent itself did. Boho Days sure sounds like a song from Rent, only Andrew Garfield as Larson is more likeable and sympathetic. (That song is ridiculously catchy.) The movie tells us he wrote a game changing musical that debuted after his death. So we know he’s an important artist. What we see is his struggle, and what compels him to keep trying.
There’s poignance in that, but director Lin-Manuel Miranda and writer Steven Levenson avoid the temptation to wallow in sentiment or literalism. The movie takes advantage of the fact that it’s not a straight adaptation of the stage musical, the original rock monologue, or a biopic. It’s a hybrid, and Garfield’s terrific performance makes it all work.
You might like it more on second viewing, or not. Everyone’s mileage will vary, and what seemed to me to be minor flaws might be a bigger problem for others. I just got a lot of enjoyment out of it, a lot more than I was expecting. I am not arguing it’s a classic movie musical, but it was awfully satisfying to me.
