Courtesy 20th Century Studios
No, Steven Spielberg! No! Don’t make me actually like this!
You probably know the West Side Story drill: White boy and former Jets member Tony (Ansel Elgort) falls for the Puerto Rican María (Rachel Zegler), whose brother leads the rival Sharks gang. Drama and violence ensue. There’s a lot more blood here, making Robert Wise’s 1961 West Side Story look like a playground by comparison.
Long-time Spielberg collaborator Tony Kushner’s screenplay brings a more logical cohesion lacking from the earlier iterations; Kushner goes a far more radical route and digs deep into the socio-economic reasons behind why these finger snappin’ street gangs exist at all: Robert Moses’ development projects bring in the wealthy gentrifiers, the boys wind up fighting for scraps. It isn’t conflict for the sake of it—here, economics and race go hand-in-hand. Young white boys are told to destroy in order to defend, even when home is just a field of rubble. In theory there’s more than enough to go around, but New York’s canyon-like streets make it suffocating.
Lovers of classic Hollywood will likely watch wide-eyed as shooting in 35mm brings a far more cinematic look commonly discarded by most modern productions. The physical design knowingly channels the heyday of Technicolor. We avoid cursed quick-cut editing that plagues the cinema of today—and guess what? We can really see the choreography at work. It looks as good as you can imagine, even if Spielberg can’t help dousing his subjects in heavy angelic light and even if West Side Story and its more musical theater elements feel dated.
We can see the technical mastery, feel it, but the appeal only goes so far. Skeptics of musicals won’t be converted. Sorry, theater kids, but pre-Cabaret musicals don’t click for everyone. Spielberg translates with such an alarming ease, though, that you might doubt if he’s fully human. Whereas so many musicals struggle with staging, every piece here is naturally fitted into its world with even the most grating songs emerging from a logical place. Spielberg knows the original’s flaws and leapfrogs them well enough, though the main storyline remains less interesting than the side plots (Ariana DeBose and Mike Faist in particular are stellar). Oh, and Shakespeare’s 16th century plot beats aren’t always natural, but if American cinema is now a dud, at least the greatest hits are properly remastered.
8
+ A rare technical marvel; America is still a banger
- Elgort is bland; still somewhat dated
West Side Story
Directed by Spielberg
With Zegler, Elgort, DeBose and Faist
Violet Crown, PG-13,
