The Jets and the Sharks.  Two rival gangs, one Polish and the other Puerto Rican, rule the streets of New York City.  They are rivals to each other but with a shared enemy of the state and new white money looking to push them out of their homes and jobs.  Amidst the looming threat of inevitable evection, Tony (Ansel Elgort), a reformed Jet, meets Maria (Rachel Zegler), the sister of the leader of the Sharks, Bernardo (David Alvarez).  The ill-fated romance of the star-crossed lovers plays out with great color and vibrancy in one of Broadway’s – and Hollywood’s – greatest hits, reimagined here for 2021 by director Steven Spielberg and with adaptations to the book by Tony Kushner: West Side Story. 

With over 60 years of directing and over 50 titles to his name, Spielberg mounts his first-ever musical in this adaptation of the iconic Broadway production originally conceived by Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents. After decades of producing blockbuster cinema, Spielberg brings all the color and bombastic moments necessary to tell this powder keg of a story, and with Kushner’s assistance on the page, the update portions of the timeless story for modern audiences while retaining its period setting.  

The film opens with the overture as we follow a sweeping crane shot over rubble from a leveled neighborhood for the future Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.  While a musical at heart, Spielberg lets us know he will be using the camera to its fullest ability in this and it will not just be a filmed stage production.  We are then introduced to the first of the Jets as they snap their way through the streets of New York singing about themes of brotherhood and loyalty on their way to deface a Puerto Rican heritage mural.  At the head of it all is Riff (Mike Faist), a weaselly firecracker who is perfectly irritable as the first major face we see in this ensemble of unlikeable characters.   

Not letting their pride get covered in a slapping of paint, the Sharks quickly come to the scene, led by Bernardo, and a brawl ensues until it is broken up by Officer Krumpke (Brian d’Arcy James) and Lieutenant Schrank (Corey Stoll).  The scene serves to introduce us to the real villain at play here – gentrification – but these two ragtag groups of riffraff are too preoccupied in their own meaningless concept of turf to realize that.  It is one of the larger problems with the majority of the ensemble in West Side Story.  The short-fused gangster is a staple character in any gang-centered film but there is typically only one and normally used for comic relief.  It is done so for two reasons: the bold actions are a lot for audiences to take in, and typically the motivations behind said actions are very one-dimensional making for boring leads, but interesting secondary characters when delivered in small doses.  West Side Story opens with an already poorly motivated ensemble which will be made even worse with the introduction of the equally thinly-motivated romance that will drive the plot forward across the film’s 156-minute runtime. 

After the brawl, we are finally introduced to Tony, and Elgort gives one of the blandest leading man performances in recent memory.  His emotionless mumbling – an attempt at devil my care bravado – is on par with any middle school production’s attempt at portraying Stanley Kowalski from A Streetcar Named Desire.  While the characterization of the ensemble is questionable, they all give rather solid performances, so it is surprising that Spielberg let Elgort get away with this incredibly uncharismatic portrayal of the lead character. 

His ineffectiveness is highlighted even more so by the radiance and emotiveness brought to the screen by Zegler’s Maria.  Zegler is far and away the shining star of the film and has already secured herself as a rising talent with the title role in the upcoming Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.  Her chemistry with her sister-in-law Anita (Ariana DeBose) is an absolute delight, and together they really embody the quintessential American Dream.  Anita, a little older than Maria, has a heart full of love for her island home but longs for the opportunities provided by New York City.  She is working multiple jobs to make sure she is not left with nothing when the new apartments are built whereas Maria, who is not without a work ethic of her own, is a little more minded to grab the bull by the horns and has the rebelliousness of youth still about her.  The scenes shared in their family home are some of the most electric to watch of the entire film as their philosophies both combat and complement each other. 

As with any Romeo and Juliet adaptation – direct or otherwise – it will live and die on the chemistry between the two leads, of which Elgort and Zegler have very little together.  The template provided by Shakespeare is certainly not without action, but the burden is on the audience to become invested in these two teens.  The script tries to support this relationship through the limitless degree of importance the neighborhood places on the doe-eyed, puppy-love-stricken characters, but it is a weak argument at best on why we as an all-knowing audience should care.  It is unfortunate, too, that Zegler is saddled with the worn-out, and by today’s standards and expectations for characters, truly archaic Juliet archetype where the only motivation for her character is blind adoration to a pretty horrible person who has little more than some flowery words to offer her.  The antiquated trajectory is extremely disappointing in West Side Story as Tony, time and time again across the two-night saga, routinely acts against Maria’s wishes. 

Kushner’s modification and modernizations to the script are helpful, but ancillary, in that they do little to really justify why this story is being brought back into the public’s immediate conciseness.  His reexamination of Anybodys (Iris Menas) from a tomboy to a transperson is welcome in the name of visibility but concerning throughout given the arc of the character and Hollywood’s tendency to bury their queers.  Thankfully, Anybodys is allowed to see the end of the film despite the amount of peril their characters experience.  Where Kushner’s updates are less effective is in the gentrification of the neighborhood.  Immediate internet communication would make this story of brash actions and miscommunications almost impossible to bring forward to 2021, but even keeping the film period set, it does not do enough to really highlight the inequity of these systems possibly due to the fact that the creative team behind this remake, much like the original, are still just a panel of rich, older white men trying to an immigrant’s story.  Spielberg does bypass the use of subtitles for the scenes in Spanish, and while it does seem more level than the 1961 classic, the angle and the tilt of the story are still heavily weighted in favor of the Jets. 

What Spielberg maintains from his predecessor is the iconic zigzag imagery of the fire escapes.  With production design by Adam Stockhausen and sets decorated by Rena DeAngelo, the film is never lacking in something exciting to look at.  Many of the interiors are robustly stocked to fill the world for the characters, but the walls definitely confine Spielberg’s camera that is otherwise allowed a free and wide range of motion in the vast exteriors.  With streets that go on for endless blocks and are always bustling with people, to buildings that reach up to the heavens, it is here where West Side Story is most alive and fully capitalizes on its ability to cut, pan, and focus on what it wants us to see in addition to colorful and theatrical lighting by Janusz Kaminski.  While the dance numbers drive the narrative to an immediate halt and drag on way too long, they are at least well thought out and the sets give the actor’s a great playground.  The film is strangely paradoxical in its pacing that while the overall story moves at an incredible clip, the individual sequences continually wear out their welcome.  

It cannot be a musical without songs and Sondheim’s hits are preserved in this.  The cast handles the singing rather well and there are only a few awkward moments of “well, now what?” at the conclusion of the spontaneous group breakouts.  Like with the rest of her role, Zegler is graceful and angelic in her duets with Elgort, who handles the singing slightly better than his speaking parts.  They are obviously supported by the prolific lyric work by one of Broadway’s most creative voices, but the two do seem to be more on each other’s wavelength when they are in song.  “Gee, Officer Krumpke” is West Side Story at its most fun, and it is a delight to watch.  Lyrically, it does help to explain the Jets, but it does not go so far as to really justify them and leaves a sour taste when it tries to write off these racist and violent characters as just being misunderstood.  Unfortunately, “I Feel Pretty” does not reach that same levity made worse by the many opportunities to really have fun with the camera in the lights and mirrors of the department store. Given the recent Broadway revival that translated Maria’s song into Spanish, that it is presented here in English is a real shame and proof that the team behind the film were still more interested in box office appeal than an actual representation of the characters.

The bright bold colors that work so well visually match the not-so-subtle handling of the stories’ themes.  The use of symbols here is incredibly heavy handed even by blockbuster standards as we are routinely seeing barriers between Tony and Maria be it the locked fire escape or curtains to show the impossibility of their relationship.  Thankfully, some restraint was shown in the final moments of the film and the temptation was overcome to turn Tony’s body into some undeserved Christ imagery – either the crucifix or the Pietà – yet the implications are all there that somehow this inconsequential boy and ineffective lead has solved everyone’s problems and brings them all together in unity over his death.  

It is West Side Story, there is not much more that needs to be said.  As a musical, it already has a few roadblocks in its way for some audiences, of which I am one.  What works in its favor is that Spielberg, being a master craftsman at the helm, makes one of the biggest films to hit the silver screen this year, especially coming out of a pandemic that locked millions of eyes onto the small screen.  With expectations going in planted firmly at the ground level, admittedly, it was a more enjoyable experience than anticipated, but the question cannot be avoided that in today’s day and age, where do stories with such an elementary handling on racial solidarity and commodification of women really belong.  All the singing and dancing cannot ease the discomfort in watching this dated narrative play out and while it was ahead of its time at its conception, the modern audience’s understanding of these themes has since surpassed the narrative thesis and it comes off as pandering at best and insulting at its worst.