The West Side Story features Tony and Rachel Zegler.
The photo was taken by Niko Tavernise.
Steven Spielberg has expressed a desire to make a big-screen musical for at least as long as I have been alive. I am not sure why it took him so long to get around to it, since the Hollywood musical has been back in some semblance of fashion since Moulin Rouge twenty years ago. We had to settle for the opening credits of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I don't think the world needs another adaptation of West Side Story. The Tony-winning show was a modern take on the classic tale of Juliet and the Sword, which became a classic in its own right. The new variation is the best version we have ever had.
West Side Story was not one of my favorite musicals. I was never into the idea of love at first sight. Even Titanic works because James Cameron offers up two mis-matched youngsters who are in love with the idea of being in love without arguing that Jack and Rose are a forever-couple for the ages. Regardless of your opinion of West Side Story, this new variation is still an artistic one, as it expands the scope of its narrative, offering nuanced and real-world grit alongside a more ethnically accurate ensemble. The picture is so spectacularly directed and passionately staged that it almost doesn't matter.
West Side Story is about gentrification in New York as it affects both the poor white residents and their Puerto Rican neighbors. The Jets and the Sharks are street gangs with white kids and PR people who are locked in a power struggle to control a quickly disappearing locality. Maria and Tony are both trying to stay out of trouble as they try to make a life for themselves in the big city. The two crazy kids meet up at an integrated dance and there are sparks that threaten to ignite a war between the rival gangs.
It is silly that these two gorgeous kids meet up, exchange pleasantries and decide to be together forever and ever. We spend a lot of time focused on the broader world and we dig into why running away together would represent an escape for both young lovers. Maria wants to be free of her older brother's watch, while Tony is called out for viewing Maria as both a means of escaping his troubled peer group and a symbolic penance for his own racially-motivated violence. Since there is more emphasis on the quickly disappearing neighborhoods, we think that Maria and Tony need to run away together, maybe not, before progress steamrolls over them.
West Side Story is a remake of a beloved classic, but it feels like a different kind of movie in this age of sanitized movies. We get a lot of sympathetic characters doing and saying unsympathetic things, along with "problematic" attitudes and actions that are allowed to unfurl without being condemned. The entire comic-relief song stands out as a problematic, because it's so repetitive and at odds with the material. Spielberg and Kushner'sMunich had a few yellow-highlighter moments, but still got libeled.
This film does have a few "corrections" in terms of prior adaptations, but it doesn't star a bunch of white actors in brown-face as Latino characters. I'm sad that under-the-radar actors like David Alvarez and Ariana DeBoise don't get spotlight opportunities in movies that require non-white leads, but I'm also happy that we get spectacular supporting turns here. It is possible that Rita and DeBoise will both be nominated for Best Supporting Actress. The store owner who employs and mentors Tony, a canny gender-and-race- swap which A) gives Moreno spotlight moments and B) automatically gives Tony a firmer sense of viewer sympathy, is played by Moreno.
Elgort mostly plays it, offering a somber and moody take as a young man sees Maria as both the love of his life and a means of validation for his compromised existence. The star turn assures us of our rooting interest in Tony before we meet Maria. The movie comments on how tall he is, but only because of the off-screen age difference. The real thing is Zegler. She has killer pipes and offers up a vividly alive star-making performance that I can only hope will be the beginning of a long and varied career. Asher Angel and her are going to strike out in the movie. Mike Faist plays the unofficial leader of the Jets with a pained awareness and fiery bottled-up fury, and he could easily be the film's Adam Driver-like breakthrough.
A sparkling cast of mostly unknowns notwithstanding, Spielberg directs the hell out of this thing, offering a fluid sense of geography. The cinematic pulse on display makes this kind of thing look easy. The film is alive with the possibility of big-budget, high-ambition moviemaking, thanks to Adam Stockhausen's production design and Paul Tazewell's colorful costumes, as well as Michael Kahn and Sarah Broshar's crackling but coherent editing. The source material doesn't magically go away, and I like some of the songs less than you do, but this is a four-star production of what I've always felt was a 2.5 star film/play. Grease Live is a movie that was filmed live in 2016 and I don't have to like it.
If you love Robert Wise's West Side Story, you will not be disappointed. The re-adaption is intended to co-exist with the Oscar-winning predecessor. The more grounded take, the broader canvas, and the more authentic performances made this version better for me. I wish Spielberg had directed a musical or three earlier in his career or used his one turn at bat to not merely update a modern/beloved classic, but this adaptation of the original 1957 play is very, very good. If the big-screen theatrical movie is truly in its final era, at least beyond the preordained brand franchise titles, films like West Side Story show that it is not going down without a fight.
