“Where we come from”, a sweet and virtuoso musical

The opinion of the “World” – To see

Adapted from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical, a huge public success on Broadway, Where we come from is the alternately realistic and enchanted portrait of Washington Heights (“The Heights”), a neighborhood in upper Manhattan, and its predominantly Hispanic population. We follow the crossed destinies of four young Latinos torn between their desire to still believe in the American dream and the disillusions that dot their daily lives as children of immigrants.

Precariousness, discrimination, gentrification, fate of undocumented migrants, failure of assimilation, community pride: Where we come from wants to be a strange object which graciously manages to combine a strong social anchoring with the requirements above ground of the great entertainment.

Faithful to the play, the film is adorned with a political conscience passed through the sieve of an imaginary Disney Channel, undoubtedly required to seduce American teenagers today.

Great skill

Opportunism or not, the film nonetheless remains precise and consistent in his way of wanting to exhaust all the dimensions of his subject and of the reality of the community that he films, without ever subscribing to miserability or victimization.

At the helm, filmmaker Jon M. Chu (Sexy Dance 3D, Crazy Rich Asians) once again confirms his great skill in the musical comedy register, capable of bringing out, in the middle of a sweet film for teenagers, a few moments of pure plastic virtuosity. Renewed proof that the filmmaker has assimilated very well all the major references of the genre, from Jacques Demy to Stanley Donen, which he reactivates and adapts to the new generation of spectators.