A better question to ask anyone who is looking to spend their lives in some form of show business would be, “are you willing to endure years of misery, rejection, horrendous jobs, failed relationships, malnutrition and frustration” just so you might have some small ray of hope, some miracle break in the future? Are you willing to have other people’s critical and fickle opinions not stop you from continuing to write, to act to never give up?

The new movie “Tick Tick Boom” is also the title of one of the Broadway musicals written by the late Jonathan Larson, played extremely well by Andrew Garfield, who tragically died of an aortic aneurism days before the debut of his hit musical “Rent” that ran on Broadway for 10 years. The fact that Larson slaved writing plays and musical for years all to miss the debut of his big hit, is also part of the mission of trying to make it when the odds are so long. Then add the vicious and so often dead wrong critics who go out of their way to try and destroy someone who has worked so hard for success.

The best line in this movie was from Judith Light who plays Larson’s agent, when he asked her, “what do I do now”, after his latest musical got great reviews but did not sell. She says, “you just write another one, and then another one. That is the reality of this business.” Unfortunately nothing in show business comes without great suffering, no matter what your talent might be. We all see the ones who make it, never the ones who try for years, and even for decades and just never get that one lucky break.

From Andrew Garfield’s past movies, especially “Hacksaw Ridge”, released in 2016, we all know that he is an outstanding actor. From this new film, we also know that he is an outstanding singer. Tick Tick Boom is a musical and for those who hate musicals, this film is tolerable enough, mainly because of the singing talent of Garfield, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexandra Shipp and Gizel Jimenez which is all outstanding throughout.

This movie marks the directorial debut of Lin-Manuel Miranda who is the creator of the huge Broadway hit “Hamilton”. As for Andrew Garfield, his performance in this movie is so strong, he will probably be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.

The ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB are a very high 87 and 85% and I agree with these numbers and highly recommend this movie that will debut on Netflix on November 19th.