He gave a passionate performance as the late “Rent” composer Jonathan Larson in “Tick, Tick… Boom!”
Macall Polay/Netflix
Rotten Tomatoes score: 88%
Synopsis: “Tick, Tick… Boom!” was released in November 2021 on
Netflix
and helmed by “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda in his directorial debut. Garfield, who had never sung professionally before or played the piano, spent a year honing both skills to portray Larson.
The film was set in 1990, shortly before Larson’s 30th birthday, as the composer got ready for a workshop of his rock musical called “Superbia,” which he spent eight years working on.
He juggled his career aspirations with his day job at the famous Moondance diner, his relationship with his girlfriend Susan (Alexandra Shipp), and the financial hardship of living in NYC — all while constantly feeling like he was running out of time to accomplish everything.
The undercurrent of “Tick, Tick… Boom!” was the knowledge that Larson, who died on the morning of January 25, 1996 hours before the first Off-Broadway preview performance of “Rent,” wouldn’t live to see the impact of his musical genius.
Jessica Derschowitz of Entertainment Weekly wrote that the film “unspools as an exuberant ode to Larson and a tribute to anyone, especially those in the arts, who might be chasing big dreams” and said that Garfield delivers “one of the most emotional performances of the year.”