Fantasy is perhaps the best possible way to describe what the product of a musical is and a good musical deals with that fantasy deliberately. Unfortunately, much like Jonathan Larson’s later musical Rent, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s tick, tick…BOOM! fails to deal with the fantasy it creates except when under the guise of its own self-awareness, which only seems to come off as derivative at this point. With the film, Miranda teaches us how the rhythmic language of the musical can be absolutely captivating and even inspiring at some points. However, similar to Rent, that pretty much seems to be the extent of Miranda’s goals. And while I certainly still got an incredible amount of emotional enjoyment from this film, I have to say that the film’s inner workings only seem to continue to nullify the art form of the musical as a whole.

19 July 2025