[citation needed] The story of Chico and Rita is set against backdrops of Havana, New York City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Paris in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The next day, Ron locates Ramón and proposes a deal to finance his artist-agency business, as long as Ramon finds jobs to keep Chico away from Rita.

Ramón complies with his end of the bargain and signs Chico with Dizzy Gillespie, who gives him a gig in Paris and a European tour.

While being driven to a set, the radio plays a new Jazz hit that she instantly recognizes as "Rita", the piece Chico composed for her while they dated in Cuba.

Ramón, by slipping drugs into Chico's coat, gets him arrested and sent back to Cuba at the start of Castro's regime; and Rita ruins her career by publicly denouncing racism of the film industry and the hypocrisy of being a celebrated black artist.

Chico is then allowed re-entry into the United States, and reunites with Rita at the same Las Vegas motel she's been a housekeeper at for her 47 years in the city.

Director Fernando Trueba met designer and artist Javier Mariscal ten years earlier when he asked him to create a poster for his Latin jazz documentary Calle 54.

[6] So began a collaboration that saw Mariscal design all the artwork for Trueba's Calle 54 Records, make animated pop promos for the label, and together create a jazz-music restaurant in Madrid.

The idea to make an animated feature film emerged from one of those pop promos, La Negra Tomasa by Cuban musician Compay Segundo.

Mariscal explained that the planes arriving from New York, Washington, D.C., and Miami during that period were filled with Cuban musicians entertaining the passengers.

They provided much historical information about the Cubans of that era: the clothes, the faces, the streets, billboards, cars, bars, the way they lived, and the sensational life of Havana.

The English dub will include the voices of Wendell Pierce, Mary J. Blige, Rob Riggle, Chris Pine, and Viola Davis.

The website's critical consensus states, "Aimed at adults and animated with zest, Chico & Rita is a romantic delight packed with cultural detail and flavor.

"[22] In March 2011, The Miami Herald said "the film melds dazzling visuals and a wildly infectious score into a simple yet affecting love story" and while the "first 30 minutes of Chico & Rita achieve a giddy high the rest of the movie can never match", "Chico & Rita makes you fall hard for music, as hard as the protagonists fall for each other, and the movie is decent enough to give its lovebirds the tender finale they deserve.

Musicians featured in the film include Chucho Valdés, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Chano Pozo, Tito Puente, Ben Webster, and Thelonious Monk.