Movie Review - West Side Story (2021)

This October was the 60th anniversary of West Side Story (1961), the film that was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, winning 10, including Best Picture. This November was also the 50th anniversary of Oscar-winning director, Steven Spielberg's feature debut, Duel (1971), which kicked off his long and highly-acclaimed career. In all those 50 years, Spielberg has never made a musical. This is his first. Some might think it sacrilegious for him to remake a film that won Best Picture. I'm sure Spielberg might not appreciate it, if someone remade Schindler's List (1993), which was his film that won Best Picture. However, West Side Story isn't the first Best Picture winner to be remade. William Wyler's Ben-Hur (1959) was remade in 2016. Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940) was remade in 2020. Yet, the reception of both those films was extremely poor and quite frankly negative.

There have been plenty of films nominated for Best Picture that have been remade, and those remakes have had more positive receptions or even better receptions than their originals. Recent examples include Les Misérables (2012), A Star Is Born (2018) and Little Women (2019). All of which are Best Picture nominees that are remakes of previous Best Picture nominees. It's not a guarantee, but it's presumed that this Spielberg film will join that list. There is an example of a Best Picture winner that is a remake of a previous Best Picture nominee that didn't win. That example is My Fair Lady (1964). That could be the title best described as a remake being better than its original. If this film is nominated for Best Picture, it could be on track to join or even surpass that distinction of My Fair Lady.

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1597) was the inspiration for the story. It was conceived to be a Broadway musical by choreographer Jerome Robbins with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The 1961 film was co-directed by Robbins with Robert Wise. At the time, the film was a contemporary film about juvenile delinquency and clashing ethnic groups in what was a multiracial, working-class neighborhood in New York City. Spielberg couldn't have made a contemporary piece because that multiracial, working-class neighborhood no longer exists. After the 1961 film was released, the area of the Upper West Side, which the film was about, was demolished as part of an urban renewal program by Robert Moses who was depicted in the recent Motherless Brooklyn (2019).

In a brilliant move, Spielberg along with his screenwriter Tony Kushner, a Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, decided to comment on that urban renewal program in this film. This film is specifically set in an area known as "San Juan Hill," which was a real neighborhood on the Upper West Side. San Juan Hill was literally demolished in the 1960's as part of the urban renewal program in order to develop and build what is now known as the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. That urban renewal program displaced the predominantly African-American and Latino families and groups that lived there. It's an early example of the phenomenon that has become a hot topic called gentrification. The original film was always about turf wars, but connecting this thematic idea of gentrification is almost obvious but still clever.

Spielberg stages the musical sequences and dance numbers really well. The best are the ones involving the rival gangs, either as individual gangs or even together. The fight sequences are also very well done. The production design, the choreography, the mise-en-scene and the cinematography are all incredible here. Spielberg weaves the groups of people in and out, to and fro, in spectacular fashion. He does a really great job establishing the Jets who are the Irish group of young people, as well as the Sharks who are the Puerto Rican group of young people. I particularly love how he establishes the various members of the Sharks that are the members who surround María, played by Rachel Zegler, in her feature debut. David Alvarez who plays Bernardo, the brother to María, and Ariana DeBose who plays Anita, the girlfriend of Bernardo, are both standouts. Josh Andrés Rivera plays Chino, a friend to Bernardo and potential love interest to María, and he's really good too.

Mike Faist who plays Riff, one of the founders and the de facto leader of the Jets, is good as a seemingly racist gang member. The film and his performance peel back layers to him that sees him as resistant to change, scared to some degree. Even though gentrification is a phenomenon mostly affecting people of color, it could be viewed that Riff is the victim of gentrification here too. The film doesn't dig into why the Upper West Side received an influx of Puerto Rican immigrants, especially after World War II, but Riff is observing it. He's also observing that the police, led by Lieutenant Schrank, played by Corey Stoll, is trying to clean up, which means clean them out, more for the wealthy or those that can attend the Lincoln Center, for example. Coming from poor and broken homes doesn't help Riff or any of the Jets, which this film jokingly addresses.

What it doesn't jokingly address is a transgender character named Anybodys, played by Iris Menas. One of the various changes that Kushner made is the presence of this transgender character. Kushner is a part of the LGBTQ community and making Anybodys transgender was a brilliant touch. Anybodys is white and possibly Irish. He wants to be a part of the Jets, but the members know that Anybodys is trans. Of course, they don't use that word. They simply say Anybodys is a girl pretending to be a boy. Seeing Anybodys fight back and stand up for himself is a nice touch of representation that most trans people don't get in major Hollywood productions like this.

All these touches are great, but what isn't great is the love story that is supposed to be the centerpiece of this film. Strangely, if the love story weren't present in this film, I don't think this film would've lost much. The third act in particular didn't work for me. I get that it's practically the same as the 1961 version, which is a take on Shakespeare's tragedy, but there are a series of incidents where several people are murdered and the reckoning of those events didn't work and didn't make sense to me. Even though it probably wouldn't fit with the tone of this film, the TV series Glee did an interpretation of the song "Something's Coming" and that interpretation by Darren Criss is my favorite. The 1961 version didn't really impress me, but Criss' version did, so that was the bar for me. Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars and Divergent) who plays Tony, the love interest for María, didn't cross that bar.

Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!

If you don't know the ending to West Side Story, skip this part, but, it's said that María's brother, Bernardo isn't married. He simply lives with his girlfriend, Anita. Yet, when Bernardo dies in the third act, it's Anita who goes to identify his body. Wouldn't it be María being that she's his next of kin? When María learns that Tony is the one who killed her brother, she forgives him rather quickly, saying that she loves him. I simply did not buy that. I don't mind that she still loves him, despite his crime, but helping him to get away and not take responsibility is another matter. It's what she does.

Again, this is fine, but when Tony dies at the hands of Chino, she doesn't help Chino try to get away. I just wonder what María would have done if Anita had been the one to kill Tony? How far does she extend her forgiveness and is it limited to only certain people? Plus, María tasked Tony to stop the rumble, which resulted in her brother's death. If she knew about it, why didn't she try to stop it herself or get the women involved or called the cops to break it up? She was the most concerned about the rumble. Yet, she passes the buck to Tony to stop it when in reality the fight was instigated by her brother, so it should have been up to her.

The ending is a shot of Chino being marched toward the cops, but a few minutes prior we see Rita Moreno who won the Oscar for her role in the original 1961 film return as a new character here named Valentina. Valentina calls a group of Jets "rapists" for their sexual assault of Anita. Those white guys get to walk away after having done that, no punishment for them. Yet, Chino, a Latino, is marched toward the cops. I didn't like the implication of that ending. Of all the boys who lived, it's only the Latino who gets punished. 

Rated PG-13 for some strong violence, strong language, suggestive material and brief smoking.
Running Time: 2 hr. and 36 mins.

In theaters.