Twentieth Century Studios
The last few years of Steven Spielberg’s movies are a bit of a mixed bag — I quite enjoyed The Post and Bridge of Spies although neither was his best work, but I found The BFG a bit dull and Ready Player One kind of a mess, if a better mess than the book it was based off of. But Spielberg in general has a mixed career, with several not great movies alongside decent ones and several legitimate masterpieces. So expectations for any new movie are already unreasonably high.
West Side Story is the latest Spielberg movie, delayed by a year, and written (based on the original musical version) by semi-frequent collaborator Tony Kushner (he also wrote Munich and Lincoln). The story is nearly the same as the 1961 version, with a bunch of tweaks here and there, and a few scenes and songs moving around.
But the underlying tale is still the same. In the rapidly gentrified Upper West Side in the 1950s, two gangs are rivals for the same crumbling neighborhood as they seem unaware how they are both being pushed out. The Jets are a generically white gang, a motley mix of Europeans, while the Sharks are made of newer Puerto Rican immigrants.
Newcomer Rachel Zegler plays Maria, a young Puerto Rican girl who works with her extroverted friend Anita (here played by Ariana DeBose) who is the girlfriend of Maria’s brother Bernardo (David Alvarez). Naturally, early Disney princess type Maria wants something more, while Bernardo is overprotective and at the same time, fighting against the Jets.
The Jets are led by Riff (Mike Faist) as they push against the immigrants after having successfully done it before with the mentioned ‘Egyptians’, but he’s also trying to reintegrate his old friend Tony (Ansel Elgort), who he created the gang with.
Twentieth Century Studios
The movie expands on Tony’s background by having him work through past guilt after serving time in jail, while also living in the basement of local shop ‘Doc’s’ — which is changed in this version to be run by his widow Valentina (Rita Morena in the role written specifically for her). Valentina’s Puerto Rican background is made quite relevant in many of the changes made over the course of the story, and there are a few other little changes here and there, most of which really work well and often better than the original. One thing of note is that the majority of the speech from the Puerto Rican characters is in Spanish — without subtitles, which certainly tested my limited vocabulary, but it’s always clear from the context what’s being said.
Otherwise it’s the same sort of tale — these are highly capable singers and dancers, choreographed by Tony-winner Justin Peck, shot by the Spielberg frequent DP Janusz Kamiński in a way that is always impeccable and often beautiful. It has been noted that Ansel Elgort is the weak point in this movie and has sexual assault allegations against him, both of which are true, although he is a decent singer and dancer, and a pretty good actor despite it all.
Of course, the other performances are highly impressive — Rachel Zegler is incandescent on screen, with the best voice in the movie, easily hitting all of the notes and shining every moment she’s on the screen. Ariana DeBose is a great heir to Rita Morena’s performance, making this version her own with aplomb, and having perhaps the most electrifying dancing moments in the movie.
I haven’t seen David Alvarez or Mike Faist in much before this, but they both do excellent work with their complex, violent characters. And otherwise the more side characters are all handled pretty well, with only one really ‘this is a modern touch’ added which will be pretty obvious when you see the change.
I only watched the original movie for the first time earlier this year, although I was familiar with both the storyline and all of the songs through cultural osmosis. Among the problems with the first version was the brownfacing of most of the Puerto Rican cast and another was that the actors playing Tony and Maria weren’t that great at singing and had little chemistry. Here that’s significantly improved, and I found that due to Rachel Zegler’s acting and singing with the Spielberg touch that I was legitimately moved by it — not something that really happened to me in the original version.
There’s a kind of timeless classic quality to the original version in terms of many of the arrangements and choreography, but the new version may be even better. Hard to say, I go back and forth on whether or not I prefer one to the other, but the fact that it’s a legitimate question says everything.
West Side Story has a run time of 2 hours 36 minutes and is rated PG-13 for some strong violence, strong language, thematic content, suggestive material and brief smoking.
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