Heartwarming / In the Heights

The stage show

• Usnavi after Vanessa suggests they go to the club and check out the fireworks in "It Won't Be Long Now". True, Sonny had to ask her out for him, but his excitement after is extremely sweet and then telling Sonny anything he wants in the store is free is doubly heartwarming as well.
• In "96,000," everyone talks about what they'd do if they won the lottery.
  • Sonny would use the money for political activism, fixing the housing crisis in the barrio, and providing local schools with better resources. Even if the others dismiss his idealism as "cute," it's still a very nice thought.
  • Usnavi, meanwhile, would pay off his debts, move back to the Dominican Republic... and give the rest to Claudia. Awww!
  • Along with all his boasting about becoming a rich businessman, Benny also mentions wanting to set up a block party for everyone in the neighborhood to enjoy.
• Graffiti Pete going out of his way to help a panicking Sonny defend the bodega in "Blackout", a way to show that the "ghetto youth" isn't as bad as they're made out to be.
  • His first instinct is to advise Sonny to get inside where it's safe — he decides to start throwing fireworks off the roof to help scare off robbers only when Sonny makes it clear he won't leave. Hidden Depths indeed.
  • It's also implied that there's another reason Pete starts throwing fireworks: to help the panicking citizens of the neighborhood find their way home, instead of having to stumble around blindly in the dark.
• When the club first goes dark, we suddenly get a look at where our main characters' priorities really lie, at the end of the day. Benny and Nina instantly forget about their fight and start screaming out for each other. Vanessa also forgets she was mad at Usnavi, and starts calling out and trying to find him. Sonny immediately runs off to defend the family store (the one he complained about working at earlier in the show). Usnavi, meanwhile, doesn't even mention the store, and runs straight to Abuela Claudia's to make sure she's okay.
• Abuela shows Usnavi a bag of cashed-out lottery winnings. She says that she's giving it to him and Vanesa, so they can achieve their dreams. Usnavi is over the moon that someone as deserving as Claudia won, and that the woman he cares about the most will get her dream apartment.
• Combined with Tear Jerker, when they find a box of Abuela's albums and folders full of everything any of their neighbors had ever given her and Nina sings "Everything I Know", a song of her past being the much-praised daughter for her scholarly prowess, until she drops out of college.
  In this album, there's a picture/Of Abuela in Havana/She is holding a ragdoll, unsmiling/Black and white/I wonder what she's thinking?/Does she know that she'll be leaving/For the city, on a cold, dark night?/ And on the day they ran,/Did they dream of endless summer?/Did her mother have a plan,/Or did they just go?/Did somebody sit her down and say/"Claudia, get ready/to leave behind everything you know."
• Vanessa's last attempt to apologize to Usnavi for giving him the cold shoulder, and trying to make him jealous in "The Club."
• The whole of "Sunrise", thus the conclusion of the interracial romance storyline for Nina and Benny, in which they promise one another they'll never leave each other, and they "don't care at all what people say beyond the sunrise."
• Usnavi gives Sonny a portion of his lotto winnings. He says that Sonny is right that the money can be used to help the barrio, and Sonny has more than earned the means to do so, if he wishes.
• Camila in "Enough" snaps at both Kevin and Nina to get them to stop fighting and actually try to settle their differences. Even when she's upset, she's still trying her hardest to keep her family together. Doubles as a Moment of Awesome.
• "When You're Home."
  Nina: So please, don't say you're proud of me when I've lost my way!
  Benny: Then can I say I couldn't get my mind off you all day?
• The "Finale".
  I'm home, where the coffee's non-stop, and I drop this hip-hop from my mom-and-pop shop. I'm home, where people come, people go, let me show all of these people what I know, there's no place like home. Now let me set the record straight, I'm steppin' to Vanessa, I'm gettin' the second date. I'm home, where it's a hundred in the shade, but with patience and faith, we remain unafraid. I'm home. You hear that music in the air? TAKE A TRAIN TO THE TOP OF THE WORLD AND I'M THERE. I'M HOME!!!

The movie

• In the opening when Usnavi greeted the Piragua Guy, several fans noted how this scene is basically Lin Manuel Miranda passing the torch to Anthony Ramos or rather acknowledging him as Usnavi.
  Usnavi: Oye, Piraguero. Como estas?
  Piraguero: Como siempre, Señor Usnavi.
• Kevin is an Adaptational Nice Guy, inviting Usnavi to the welcome back dinner for Nina. Usnavi mentions that Abuela Claudia has been cooking all week. "Are we going to eat!" They sing simultaneously.
• In this version of the story, Daniela and Carla are a couple, and they have some adorable moments scattered throughout the film. Their introductory shot is in their bedroom as Carla gives Daniela a good-morning kiss to start the day.
• The elderly couple who greeted Nina in "Breathe" are actually played by Lin-Manuel Miranda's parents Luis and Luz.
  The couple: Welcome home.
• Daniela and Carla immediately shoot a Death Glare at their customers when they gossip that Nina must have flunked out or gotten pregnant to leave Stanford. They then look concerned for Nina that she ran off, wanting to follow and ask her.
• When Kevin finds out that Nina was racially profiled while studying at Stanford, his first reaction is Papa Wolf. He asks how someone could do that to his daughter, and why she didn't tell him. Nina is forced to admit she was embarrassed.
• We get more of Vanessa and Usnavi's romance in the movie.
  • His adorable attempt to cheer her up by drawing a smiley on the cold fridge door, then pressing his nose up against it to make a goofy face.
  • In one quiet scene, he admits he's had a crush on her since high school, watching her doodle in class and making incredible art. It introduces their Arc Words: "I wish I could see the whole world through her eyes." In the end, Vanessa gives him his wish when she and Graffiti Pete team up to make an astonishing Caribbean beach mural and repurpose the drip rags into a colorful fashion line, which finally makes Usnavi realize where he belongs.
  • The film ends some years later with Usnavi, Vanessa, and their daughter Iris dancing in the street, celebrating their community.
• The Stinger with the Piraguero giving some piragua to Mr. Softee after his truck breaks down and his potential customers flock to the piragua cart.
• The changes to "Blackout". Due to the movie now being set in the late 2010s/early 2020s (and thus in a very different political climate than the musical's setting of 2008), the looting and shooting that occurs during the blackout in the musical had to be cut, resulting in a scene that has realistic stress and gravity (the panicked clubgoers, Benny and Kevin dispatching the taxis for emergencies after seeing people fighting for cars), but also emphasizes a sense of community (Pete and Sonny lighting fireworks for actual light and entertainment, dancers in the streets, the sweet gathering at Abuela Claudia’s place).
  • While lighting up the fireworks, Pete and Sonny yell at everyone to backup and shield them with their bodies. Then they stand to admire the fireworks as they go off in the sky.
• In the musical, we never find out what Usnavi does with his portion of the winnings when he decides to stay in Washington Heights. Here, he uses it to help Sonny with the fees of getting a Green Card, showing a Big Brother Instinct. Usnavi as he tells the story to Iris and her friends is grinning, having decided that giving his cousin a better future was Worth It.
• In the scene where Usnavi and Sonny meet with a family friend who is a lawyer, Usnavi says he wants to use the money to help with Sonny's battle to receive a Green Card, and anything left needs to be put in a trust fund for his cousin. Their friend warns them that it may be for nothing, but Usnavi points out it's still a chance for Sonny to go to college and get a driver's license. Sonny looks awed that Usnavi would do this for him and agrees he wants to try and get a Green Card.
• The context of Usnavi's change of heart at the end is altered as well. Here, Pete's dropcloths inspired Vanessa to create more fashion, and she needed more dropcloths. Thus, she and Pete had Sonny open the bodega so a mural of the beach could be painted. Usnavi is floored that it's his father's beach, and Pete admits he painted it from memory. That's when Usnavi realizes that he is where he wants to be.
• Kevin forgives Nina for running away during their fight. That's because she stayed with Usnavi, who took her back to Abuela Claudia's apartment, so he wasn't searching the streets for her during the blackout.
• Unlike in the musical, Kevin is more than fine with Benny dating Nina. It's never said, but there is no confrontation when Benny asks for his blessing; instead, the couple hangs out all summer. When they run the dispatch during the blackout, they're announcing simultaneously, like father and son.
• During "Carnaval del Barrio", it's very much blink-and-you'll-miss-it, but Benny is holding a flag of his own during the song, one for Jamaica. While he's not Latino like most of the neighborhood, he's still representing his heritage, too.
• In "Alabanza", Nina, Kevin, and Sonny came in so a grieving Usnavi wouldn't be all alone in an empty room.
• At the end, the bodega is decorated with many (if not all) of the significant items in the story: the Tide pen, Vanessa's champagne bottle, the bingo cage, etc. Usnavi is carrying on Abuela Claudia's legacy as a preserver of mementoes and memories (as portrayed in the cut song Everything I Know).