“Love you, Daddy.”

From In the Heights.

In the middle of a heat wave that is pressing down on New York City, Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) is trying to manage the added craziness that the heat is bringing to his Washington Heights neighborhood and the people that live there (including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Noah Catala, and Mateo Gómez). Since the death of his parents, Usnavi has run a small corner store with the help of his younger cousin Sonny (Gregory Diaz), but he dreams of moving back to the Dominican Republic to reopen his father’s bar. Home from her first year away at Stanford, Nina (Leslie Grace) is struggling to find a way to tell her father, Kevin (Jimmy Smits)—and the entire neighborhood—that she’s dropped out of school. However, Kevin’s top employee, Benny (Corey Hawkins), is glad to have Nina back home, especially since he still has feelings for her. Vanessa (Melissa Barrera) works at a salon with some other women (including Daphne Rubin-Vega, Stephanie Beatriz, and Dascha Polanco), but she constantly dreams about becoming a fashion designer to get out of Washington Heights forever. When a hurricane in the Dominican Republic provides Usnavi with the chance to buy his father’s now-mostly-destroyed bar, he jumps at the chance, asking his Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz) and Sonny to move with him at the end of the summer. The only part of his life in Washington Heights that causes Usnavi any doubt about returning to his childhood home are the feelings he has for the beautiful Vanessa and the fact that he’s been too shy to make a move with her, even though she seems to like him too. When the heat wave sets off a blackout across the city, tragedy strikes, relationships are tested, and countless challenges arise that force Usnavi to evaluate everything in his future.

This musical is loud, fun, and boldly captivating. Most of the film’s dialog is set to music, but the wide variety in each song’s style, choreography, and settings keep everything from being overpowering. The cast is talented and will easily lead viewers through the heartfelt and inspiring story that is In the Heights.

| Rated: PG-13 | Running Time: 143 minutes |Genre: musical/drama|

||Family Viewing||Cursing: 3 of 10|Nudity: 0.5 of 10|Sexuality: 0 of 10|Gore: 0 of 10

|AVAILABLE FOR HOME VIEWING|