My throat hurts.
Not like, sick-hurts. Like I've been singing at the top of my lungs for three hours straight. Which I have. In my living room. To the profound confusion of my cat, who is currently staring at me from the top of the bookshelf like I've just sprouted a second head. It's 1:58 AM and the credits for *Hamilton* are rolling on Disney+, and I feel like I've just mainlined pure, uncut adrenaline and American history. My brain is buzzing. I'm pretty sure I could run a marathon right now. Or at least write a very passionate, very poorly-researched essay on the Neutrality Proclamation of 1793.
Who knew? Who KNEW fiscal policy could be a banger? "Cabinet Battle #1"? I was on my feet. Literally. I shot up off the couch during Jefferson's verse, pacing around my coffee table. My roommate probably thinks I'm having a seizure. I'm not. I'm just... feeling it. The sheer audacity of it. To take the driest, most boring stuff from history class and turn it into a rap battle. It's genius. It's the most genius thing I've ever seen.
And that stage. God, that stage. The turntable. I can't get it out of my head. It's always moving, always turning, like time itself is just a slippery slope they're all trying not to fall off. But the one moment... the one that's just burned into my retinas... is "Satisfied." The way Angelica tells her story, and then the whole thing just... rewinds. The turntable spins backwards, the lights shift, and we're right back at the party where she met Hamilton. But this time we see it through her eyes. We see her see him. We see her sacrifice. I was leaning so far forward I think I pulled a muscle in my back. The choreography, the lighting, the way the whole production just bends time and space... it's not a song, it's a goddamn magic trick.
This reminds me of Mr. Henderson's 11th-grade history class. It was right after lunch, in a room with no windows, and that man could make the American Revolution sound like a lecture on the migratory patterns of the common housefly. Dates. Names. Battles. Just a wall of grey, boring text. I remember doodling in my notebook, drawing tanks and spaceships, while he droned on and on about Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury. I think I might have gotten a C- in that class. And now, here I am, ten years later, emotionally invested in the establishment of a national bank. What a world. What a stupid, beautiful world.
But honestly, now that I'm typing this... am I okay with this? Am I okay with them turning these guys into rock stars? I mean, Jefferson owned slaves. Hamilton was... complicated, to say the least. The movie glosses over a lot of the really ugly stuff, doesn't it? It's this incredible, diverse, forward-thinking piece of art, but it's built on a foundation of... sanitized history. I was cheering for them, all of them, and a little voice in the back of my head was whispering, "You know they were slave owners, right?" I thought I loved it. Every second. But now that I'm sitting here in the quiet of my apartment, the adrenaline fading... I don't know. Does the art justify the historical revisionism? I have no idea. My brain hurts.
The whole experience of watching it at home is so weird, too. This was a live event. People paid thousands of dollars to see it in a theater, to feel that collective energy. And I'm watching it on my couch, in my pajamas, with the ability to pause it to go get a Diet Coke. Which I did. Twice. The intimacy is wild, though. I can see the sweat on their faces. I can see the exact moment Lin-Manuel Miranda's voice cracks with emotion during "It's Quiet Uptown." The camera gets so close. It's a trade-off, I guess. You lose the audience, but you gain a level of detail that's almost uncomfortably personal. It's like being allowed backstage during the most important show of their lives.
And King George III. I loved him. I thought he was hilarious. The pettiness, the passive-aggression, the whole "I will send a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love!" bit. I was laughing out loud. But now... was it too much? Did it break the tension too much? Here we are, deep in the emotional turmoil of the revolution, and suddenly we get a Beatles-esque breakup song. I don't know. Maybe that's the point. Maybe the comedy is the only thing keeping you from drowning in all the tragedy and ambition.
I can't stop thinking about Eliza. Her story. The way the show starts with him, ends with her. "Who lives, who dies, who tells your story." She's the one who tells his. She outlives him by fifty years. Fifty years of preserving his legacy, of telling his story. The final moment, when she takes that step forward and gasps... and the light hits her... I'm not crying, you're crying. It's just... so much. It's the entire history of America, the entire history of love and loss and legacy, all in one single gasp.
Okay. I'm rambling. My thoughts are all tangled up like headphones in a pocket. I need to go listen to the soundtrack again. Immediately. I'm never going to get any sleep.
9.5/10 - banger
- alex