November 28, 2021 – Musicals about musicians and people who write musical plays seem a bit like self reverential navel gazing, what Playbill calls “meta-musicals.” They can be great, like “Singin' in the Rain,” or not, like “Lennon.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda (“Hamilton”) directs this film about the late playwright, Jonathan David Larson (played by Andrew Garfield of “Breathe”) as he works to finish his dystopian musical, “Superbia.” Every director and producer in New York City has been invited to the workshop where he will showcase the music of “Superbia.” He has been working on it for years, but he is stuck on the last song he needs to finish it. He only has a few days left to finish it, and he has a bad case of writer's block.

In addition to having no money and no time to do what he needs to do, Larson is also under pressure from his girlfriend, Susan (Alexandra Shipp of “Shaft”) to decide if he wants to move with her to another city, where she has a job offer. Larson works at the Moondance Diner, where he almost makes enough money to pay his bills. His roommate, Michael (Robin de Jesús of “The Boys in the Band”) is also moving out, so Larson needs to find a new roommate to help pay the rent.

Michael and Larson are old friends, and they both had show business dreams. Michael wanted to be an actor, but now works for an advertising agency. He even tries to get Larson a job at the agency as a jingle writer. Michael seems to have it made with a high salary and a nice apartment, but he has his own problems to deal with.

Susan, a dancer whose career was sidelined by injury, has always played second fiddle to Larson's musical ambitions. Now she is looking towards new career opportunities, but she can't get an answer from Larson, who is still trying to finish that one last song for his workshop show. He keeps putting her off.

One playwright who has a big influence on Larson is fellow famed playwright Stephen Sondheim (played by Bradley Whitford of “Get Out”). It is Sondheim who convinces Larson that he needs an additional song in the second act of “Superbia.” He hopes that Sondheim shows up for his big workshop performance.

There are some surprises in the story at this point, which I won't give away here. Suffice it to say that the climax of this film is not what I expected, given what had come before. The screenplay for this movie was written by Steven Levenson and is based on the stage musical of the same name, written by the real Jonathan Larson. Larson is best known for his long-running Broadway musical hit, “Rent.”

Legendary playwright Stephen Sondheim (“West Side Story”) died just two days before I wrote this review, but he did participate in the making of this movie. That is his voice you hear near the end of the movie on Larson's answering machine, and he wrote his own lines, too. If you need any more poignancy than that, Larson died suddenly, in 1996, at the age of 35, just before “Rent” opened off Broadway.

The music in this movie is pretty good, and the story is solid. Worse musicals than this have won awards. Two of the main singers in the musical are the talented Vanessa Hudgens and Joshua Henry. Expert video and sound editing in a big musical scene near the end of the movie creates a unique kind of duet out of two solos sung by Hudgens and Shipp in different places.

Despite all the complications, this is a simple story about a man determined to see his creation recognized. He is almost defeated by setbacks, but finally is able to continue to fight on when he realizes it isn't about financial success and fame, it is about the inner need to create. This film rates a B.

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