MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
In the Heights
MARIA DUARTE is inspired by an uplifting musical about Hispanic immigrants making a home for themselves in New York City
A screenshot from Jon M Chu's In the Heights
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
A New Awakening: Adventures In British Jazz 1966 - 1971, G3, and Buck Owens
JAMES WALSH is moved by an exhibition of graphic art that relates horrors that would be much less immediate in other media
In the Heights (PG)
Directed by Jon M Chu
FROM the creator and star of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, comes an uplifting and rousing exploration of what it means to be a Hispanic immigrant and dreamer in the US — particularly in the wake of the Trump administration, which labelled them killers, rapists and criminals — in this film adaptation of his award-winning stage musical.
It opens with the film’s narrator, Usnavi (an exceptional Anthony Ramos from Hamilton), on a beachside bar in the Dominican Republic recounting to some young kids his life in the largely Dominican Washington Heights neighbourhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City.
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