There’s a lot happening in the computer-animated musical comedy “Vivo”. At its centre, it’s about the power of music, and seeking to prove that a single song can change a life. The story is about the titular Vivo, a kinkajou in Cuba, travelling to Florida to deliver a specially composed love-song on behalf of a dear friend of his. That song will give voice to long buried feeling and, hopefully, inspire something in the recipient. But that simple set up is only part of a larger swathe of adventures and misadventures.
We first meet Vivo in Cuba with his owner, Andrés. The pair delight the crowds in Havana even as the aging Andrés longs for the days of his youth when he was in love with his musical partner Marta Sandoval. When Marta reaches out to Andrés after years, the dormant feelings of love are reawakened – and with them the notes of a love-song written decades ago. But tragedy strikes and Vivo has to undertake a journey to deliver the song, and also to honour a friend. He finds a companion and a kindred spirit in Gabi, Andrés’ great-niece, and we soon have a buddy-comedy of sorts as the mismatched pair seeks to deliver the song, and also to find themselves in the wake of their respective tragedies.
Their quest will be waylaid by a number of familiar things–dangerous wildlife, a trio of overzealous girl scouts who are just as dangerous, and an out of touch parental figure. We know the parts from this playbook and director Kirk DeMicco (most notable for directing and writing “The Croods”) is emphasising that adventure quest element.
But the familiar tropes of an adventure comedy do not distinguish “Vivo”. For that the credit must go to Lin-Manuel Miranda, who voices Vivo and also writes the slew of original songs for the film. Miranda, a celebrated figure of the stage, made his first notable foray into film a few years ago by co-writing the music for “Moana.” This year a string of Miranda releases is slated. There was the film adaptation of his Broadway hit “In the Heights” in June, “Vivo” in August and later in the year he makes his directorial debut with the adaptation of the stage musical “tick, tick… BOOM!” before another animated musical, Disney’s “Encanto,” is due for release.
In some ways “Vivo” feels like an accidental rejoinder to the conversation sparked by “In the Heights.” The initial ebullient reception of that film shifted to a more excavating consideration of Afro-Latinx characters on screen. Miranda, a poster boy for earnest musical theatre sensibilities that very often get written off as corniness, came under scrutiny in ways that felt inherently unwinnable. His socio-political blind-spots notwithstanding, the conversation on “In the Heights” was a necessary reminder that the paucity of voices of colour in the media still meant that every piece of art beyond the White gaze would be held up for scrutiny not just for inherent issues but because there are so few of them. In “Vivo,” beyond Miranda, the cast is a mix of performers – many of Afro-Latinx heritage – offering a mix of voices, and genres. Miranda’s music also evinces a shift in musicality between the classic tones of Andrés (voiced by legendary Cuban musician Juan de Marcos González), his partner Marta (voiced by superstar Gloria Estefan), the irrepressible Gabi (voiced by Ynairaly Simo) and her mother (voiced by Zoe Saldana).
There’s an ambitious attempt to blend the sonically divergent sounds that recalls Miranda’s underrated work on the score of the stage-version of “Bring It On,” where the competing cheer-squads with competing musical sensibilities were written by Miranda along with musician Tom Kitt and lyricist Amanda Green. That score’s intentional mixing of the sonically divergent was a creative point of unusual harmonies and I wondered what “Vivo” might sound like if Miranda had another musician to play off of. Still, to Miranda’s credit it is the music of “Vivo” that is most central. It’s hard for a musical score to live up to the ethos that a song can change a life but Miranda tries hard, even when it does not always work.
For all the celebrity of “Lin-Manuel Miranda,” he’s a writer aware of his own limits. When “Hamilton” swept the theatre world a few years ago, the recurring critique that Miranda was the weakest link of the cast seemed to ignore that his musical sensibilities are built on a selfless awareness of his team. The most creative numbers in “Hamilton” are notably not the songs written for him. The same obtains in “Vivo”. Miranda is generous with his writing, recognising the wealth of voices and timbres on show here. It’s a grace that’s critical to making “Vivo” work in its best moments. Even as Vivo is central to the film (it is his story), the film feels sturdier and more musically conscientious when it allows the rest of the voices to shine through. González and Estefan, stars in their own right, in particular are most confident and sing beautifully, albeit too briefly. The opening number, a duet between González and Miranda sets the tone for the film, even though he’s absent for much of the film’s middle.
Structurally, the film’s script (DeMicco cowrites with Quiara Alegría Hudes from a story by Hudes and Peter Barsocchini) takes many swerves, which feel like the signs of the writers squeezing as many adventures as they can in to keep the intended young audience interested. I wish that “Vivo” had the confidence to settle and realise that it has enough to work with in those quieter moments. Miranda, though, uses these swerves to find musical value on the peripheries.
Late in the film, there’s a pivot to a rainforest adventure that feels incongruous and unnecessary within the narrative, but the winsomeness of Miranda the musician prevails. He saves one of his defter numbers for Brian Tyree Henry and Nicole Byer in a scene-stealing moment, turning a jarring swerve from the main story into something that works nonetheless.
Ultimately, “Vivo” is a story buoyed by instinctive awareness of hope and thoughtfulness. Each key character has their own specific sound, and in the bond between Gabi and Vivo, the score explores a trenchant contemporary sound amidst an awareness of the cultural foundation set by Andrés and Marta. The final number is a grand burst of bilingual joyfulness that feels intentional – mixing the immigrant sounds of Marta and Vivo with that of the first and second-generation Americans. The story, subtly but decisively, speaks to the nature of immigrants in the U.S., and thrives on a transnational awareness of culture where mixing of cultures feels welcome. Fantasy? Perhaps, but not an insignificant message in the current times. In Spanish ‘vivo’ is a conjugation the verb ‘to live’. The film doesn’t spend much time commenting on it (beyond a brief, tender moment when Andrés gives him the name) but it feels apt for the film. There are many moments where the energy lags or the film seems to be veering of course but it’s a relentless mixture of tones that is energetic and definitely alive. In that way, the irrepressible muchness that’s running through “Vivo” feels pleasant enough, even if it never quite reaches the heights of its catchiest tunes.
Vivo is currently streaming on Netflix.
