Gather round, dear miscreants, for a tale of someone who managed to avoid Hamilton for the entire duration of its notably awful stint as Tumblr’s fandom of choice back in 2016. For the uninitiated, as I was and largely remained until writing this, Hamilton is a musical that first came to Broadway in 2015. It’s the story of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton’s life, told with a loose adherence to historical realism. Instead, the focus is on style galore. 

It makes a deliberate choice to tell the story of a bunch of old white men through the lens of people of color, with music that draws heavily on hip hop. Renee Elise Goldsberry, who originated the role of Angelica Schuyler on Broadway, said the casting gave them “the opportunity to reclaim a history that some of us don’t necessarily think is our own.” Its diversity and reclamation has made it a special musical for a lot of people.

It is critically acclaimed, award winning, considered a triumph of modern musicals, and… it was also the center of a lot of controversy on Tumblr. It became the fandom to be in for a hot minute, and Tumblr was always a hotbed of transformative works: fanfiction, fanart, fan videos. Most of this was harmless. Fandoms can often be categorized as annoying but harmless. On the other hand, there were also a lot of people who didn’t really question whether or not any of their transformative works were… well, weird. Five cursed words came from this: weeaboo drug dealer Thomas Jefferson.

I dodged around it for all these reasons. I’m active in fandoms myself and have written fanfiction, but I draw the line at shipping the Founding Fathers of America. More importantly, though, I avoided it because theater is painfully inaccessible. There is a dearth of professionally filmed plays and musicals that means anyone who doesn’t live in a notable city or has tonnes of money can’t really get into theater. 

That is, of course, unless you’re willing to get into the messy ecosystem of bootlegs. Bootlegs are the illicitly filmed copies of stage productions that all have universally terrible quality. A bootleg filmed in 2019 will usually have the same quality as a bootleg filmed in 1990. Either that or you have to pick between good audio and good video quality, never both. 

This isn’t to disparage bootlegs, though. I’m not commenting on their legality or their appropriateness, but it’s hard to deny that for those who can’t get to the theater, bootlegs have been the only thing sustaining interest. I’ve never found them to be worth the effort, and I don’t really like to treat musicals as concept albums. I try to get into them via official albums, so I skirted around Hamilton entirely. 

Until now, that is. It’s on Disney+ now. Directed by Thomas Kail, it stars the original Broadway cast, including writer, composer and producer Lin-Manuel Miranda as the titular Hamilton, for a professionally shot, full high-definition experience. 

The first thing I thought when booting up Disney+ to get a good look at Hamilton was: oh jeez oh boy that sure is a long running time huh. Clocking in at 2 hours and 40 minutes, it’s daunting! I have ADHD! I consider it borderline unfair to ask me to give anything that much undivided attention. For Hamilton, though, I knew I had to try.

Filmed in front of a live audience in 2016, Hamilton follows the rise and fall of its titular figure. Aaron Burr, played by Leslie Odom Jr, frames the majority of the musical; acting as narrator, rival, friend and enemy to Miranda’s Hamilton throughout. It is nearly entirely sung throughout and never becomes sluggish or loses pace. Rather, at times, the musical takes calculated pauses for breath before ramping back up again. The energy, I have to admit, is incredible, and formidable as the music leaps from genre to genre without ever seeming incongruous.

On the note of incongruity, I did spend the first few songs having to adjust. Where fantastical musicals ask you to suspend disbelief, to believe in witches both good and wicked, Hamilton instead asks you to believe in the Founding Fathers as protagonists. It’s weird. I can’t even imagine the thought process involved in sitting down and saying, “I’m going to write a musical about Alexander Hamilton today.” 

I’m not American, which might have contributed to the difficulty I had with the concept. I knew the musical was literally about him and I also have an enormous appreciation of the way that Hamilton tips the story on its head through casting and songwriting choices. Hamilton played out with no hip hop flavor and an all white cast, would land extremely poorly. All the same, it still feels so strange to have this bouncy, emotive, bombastic musical revolving around… this guy. He’s a figure from America’s mixed and pockmarked past, and it’s easy to see where some criticism of the musical comes from when it mostly glosses over atrocities and attitudes of the era.

If you let yourself be drawn in by the music, though, it becomes easy to see Hamilton for what it is: an effective work of historical fiction. It’s fun, more than literally anything else. The film helps embody the life of the musical, highlighting energetic choreography and explosive performances. It’s filmed largely wide, but allows for more angles and intimacy than you would experience sat in the audience. Like this, the Hamilton film doubles as both an endorsement for seeing it on stage and a detailed experience for fans who have seen it before, either in person or on a bootleg.

It’s rich. It’s beautifully lit, and id incredibly well staged and told, although it’s told less as a cohesive story and more of a series of vignettes across Hamilton’s life. I did feel that the musical never had many critical things to say about him. In the end, it treats him as the forgotten father, as an underdog of American history. I question if he really is. Hamilton is a man with statues, portraits, and engravings, not a figure consigned to the bottomless pits of history without recognition.

None of this means it isn’t fun, or a good musical, or wildly entertaining. It’s all of those things, and the musical balances wonderfully heightened moments of absurdity with grief-choked moments of sorrow almost effortlessly. I do keep coming back to the word weird, though. There’s a dissonance between the good time you have, the story you are told, and what happened in real life. Even if you’re not concerned so much with historical accuracy – and by and large, I’m not – it’s difficult to divorce it from reality.

There are a number of standout performances across the musical. There’s nobody bad in this musical, every single cast member brings their a-game. This includes every member of the company, who are tasked with so much scenery and staging that after a while you realize that they’re responsible for ninety percent of the on-stage atmosphere.

Of the main cast in particular, Daveed Diggs deserves every second of screen time he gets and I wish he had more. In Act One, he portrays Marquis de Lafayette, and in Act Two he portrays Thomas Jefferson. Both characters are loud in their presence, but Diggs gives each of them a markedly different attitude that is familiar but distinct. He is a talented, colorful performer, every moment that he has to cross the stage is another moment he sells his character to the audience, including some spectacular comedic timing. He’s also incredibly handsome, but I don’t think that counts much as a professional opinion.

Goldsberry is an actress I’m familiar with from Altered Carbon, and it’s truly a delight to see her in a completely different environment here. She brings a dignity to her character that could have very easily been lost in the hands of anyone else. She plays Hamilton’s sister-in-law who shares his keen mind and carries a torch for him. Her song, “Satisfied”, is a gut punch, with her performance going from quickfire verses to long laments in a way that is just heartbreaking.

“Satisfied” also embodies one of the best parts of Hamilton in general: the interwoven songs and the magnificent staging. From the start, each song repeatedly crops up in another, with lyrics, lines, and references pinging back and forth, along with the echoing refrain of history and stories being told. Alongside this, in “Satisfied” we watch as the stage physically rolls itself back to the beginning of the previous song, only to tell those events through Schuyler’s eyes.

Set pieces are rolled around, with choreography reversing itself, repeating itself and replacing itself. It’s magnificent and impossible to not be sucked in by the sheer gravitational pull that this musical creates. No matter how weird the subject matter, the musical itself takes hold of you. 

Special mention among the cast goes to Jonathan Groff’s depiction of King George. He’s a comedic figure in Hamilton, an absurd, oppressive villain across the ocean who never directly interacts with the rest of the cast. Groff pairs this embodiment of a malicious cartoon with his very genuine talent for singing in an incredibly striking way.

Aside from being captured spectacularly well, the film also never entirely lets you forget that you’re watching a stage production, and I believe this is only to its benefit. It is a musical. You are never allowed to forget that it’s a musical. The audience even laughs, cheers, hollers at the right moments, with applause being allowed to ring through at times when it’s not disruptive to have it there. It’s a masterful piece of recording and editing because it makes you feel like you’re nearly in the room.

It’s also organic and an enhanced version of what you would have seen if you’d gone to see the musical with this cast on that stage in that year. The simplicity, the way that the film relies on the musical to show its worth to those watching, is exactly what is required to make the film work. It demonstrates the powerhouses that sing the songs and act their socks off. If it was filmed over multiple nights, or is more heavily edited than implied, then it’s seamless, which is a triumph all its own.

Sometimes, filmed concerts can detract from the concert by editing too much and not letting the product stand on its own two feet. This is the opposite. If you missed out on the Hamilton hype or like me, were a bit scared of the hype and want to give it a try, this movie is the only way to do it. That 2 hour and 40 minute runtime I was so worried about breezed by, and if you need a break, there’s an intermission included.

Regardless of what I think of its historical content, I hope this version of Hamilton paves the way for future musicals. By and large, musical movies have been relegated to questionable adaptations, or oddly staged anniversary shows that feel more like highlight reels than actual productions. It’s a barrier to making theater accessible, and it’s not what the people want. People want their Hamiltons. They want the theater brought to their homes, alive, and vibrant.

I’m certain I’ll be revisiting Hamilton just for the atmosphere and the music alone. I hope it’s a trendsetter. I really, really do.

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Hamilton

6.5

Score

6.5/10

Pros

• Incredibly well produced
• Beautiful choreography and staging
• Knockout performances from all stars
• Catchy music and lyrics
• Casting that turns the concept on its head

Cons

• It's about Alexander Hamilton