Tick, Tick…Boom! – 8/10

One of the most surprised I’ve ever been with a movie and completely in a positive way, the biographical musical about broadway composer Jonathan Larson magically tells the story of friendship, love and the importance of following your dreams.

I’ll start by saying I wasn’t familiar with the works of Jonathan Larson beforehand but after watching the movie I read into his life a bit more and learned just how passionate he was about the arts. Larson left a legacy on the broadway scene with his Tony Award winning Rent, a production that had a greater impact after he sadly passed away on its opening day aged only 35.

His story was one of failure, perseverance, humbleness and eventually success as he became one of the greatest ever broadway playwrights. The movie captures this perfectly and this is purely down to the performance of Andrew Garfield who plays the composer in such fine fashion, capturing the social issues Larson faced whilst living in New York in his late 20s.

Garfield sings, he laughs, he cries, he shows us every emotion imaginable making it undoubtedly his best performance to date. Everyone will talk about him returning as Spider-Man in No Way Home but this is the performance he should the making headlines for.

A feature length adaptation of Larson’s autobiographical rock monologue, Tick, Tick…Boom! follows Jonathan Larson telling audiences the story of Superbia, a musical he had spent years devoting his life to write only for it to fall short and never see the light of production despite positive reviews. The writer gets caught up in developing his musical vision and this has serious effects on the relationship with his girlfriend Susan (Alexandra Shipp) who is based on Laron’s real life girlfriend Janet Charleston. His best friend Michael (Robin de Jesús) has his own battles to face as well with the movie portraying so delicately the history of HIV and the impact it was having on many across the United States and the rest of the world. All of these factors contribute to Jonathan Larson’s career as with rejection he finds a new lease of inspiration and focusses on writing something new whilst coming to terms of the sacrifices he has made to make him a successful composer.

The performances from everyone combined makes this movie so powerful, not only are you watching someone’s life unfold but you are also given a message over the course of the story that is conveyed so gracefully.

Each song has a different meaning, some more important than others but they all equally have their purpose and reflect not only Jonathan Larson’s musical style but his own life choices.

As I mentioned at the beginning I was shocked as to how well executed this movie was, after seeing everyone talk about it online I knew I had to see for myself what it was I was missing and it did not disappoint.

I sincerely hope it gets all the accolades it deserve, Netlfix have done so well in producing fantastic content over the last few years and Tick, Tick…Boom! deserves to be at the summit of musicals and more importantly Andrew Garfield shows how monumental his performances can be.