Vivo (2021)

Vivo only perpetuates the myth that Lin-Manuel Miranda can write songs. I would say that as a composer Miranda is a great singer, except that he can’t sing for shit either; his singing voice is a kind of annoying nasal whine, and his long-winded 'songs' result in him audibly sucking wind in the middle of a verse. In Havana, Cuba, Andrés Hernández (Juan de Marcos González) and his kinkajú Vivo (Miranda) perform together in the plaza. The kinkajou is a tropical forest mammal related to olingos and raccoons, among others. As far as I can discern this animal is not native to Cuba, and one would think that Miranda's so-called songs, being little more than exposition set to music, could at least take the trouble to tie up this loose end, but the best he can come up with is "maybe I fell into a crate when I was a baby.” At first, Vivo has a Stewie Griffin sort of thing going on; he talks, and talks, and talks ad nauseam, but it's unclear whether humans can understand him. We soon discover that when he talks, what people hear are the type of screeching that we usually associate with a monkey. Okay, so when Vivo “sings” in public with Andrés, what he’s really doing is howling like a wild animal, and people pay to listen to this? Or are they paying for it to stop? On the other hand, there is, aesthetically speaking, little or no difference between a screaming monkey and Miranda "singing," so at least this aspect is true to life. Now, a talking monkey would be much easier to believe than the fact that everyone in Havana speaks English fluently — and we can't even pretend they're speaking Spanish amongst themselves, because every once in a while they slip a word or phrase in Castilian; this raises the question, if when they speak English they’re speaking Spanish, what are they speaking when they speak Spanish? Miranda is of Puerto Rican descent, but Latin American and Caribbean rhythms are as foreign to him as his “music” is to us. Ironically, Wim Wenders and Ry Cooder — a German and an American — displayed a greater appreciation and respect for, as well as a better understanding of, Cuban Creole music in their documentary Buena Vista Social Club. In contrast, Vivo is not only offensive to the ears, but also, being computer-animated, offensive to the eyes as well.