West Side Story (2021)

Score: 5 / 5

This is exactly how it should always be done. This is a perfect movie musical and a perfect remake. Steven Spielberg reminds us, after about fifteen years of solid but typical movies, that he is a legend for a reason. I mean, I loved Bridge of Spies and The Post and especially Lincoln, but his last truly great movie for me was Munich in 2005. Interestingly, that same year he also did a remake, War of the Worlds, which at the time was, for me, also a nearly perfect remake. But West Side Story, an adaptation of the 1957 musical and, to a lesser extent, the 1961 classic film, is easily already in my top 5 of the director's long, storied filmography. It's also -- and forgive the possible heresy here -- a better film than the original. Which is saying a lot for a movie that swept the Oscars and is regularly still shown in high school music, theatre, and dance classes.

Some may decry the "need" for a remake, but after four years of a president who repeatedly denounced "shithole" countries and whose racist policies and remarks often targeted Latin American, Hispanic, and even Puerto Rican people, updated works like In the Heights and West Side Story are exactly the kinds of musicals we need for mass audiences. Plus, the original WSS film was very much filmed on large sound stages, as if we were meant to experience the theatrical production even more than its cinematic delivery. Spielberg keeps the impetus if not the vehicle. His new film is clearly a dynamic movie and meant to avoid comparison to a stage production (like the many produced in theatres around the world every year). And yet, he also avoids the frenetic editing, frenzied pacing, and overall overwhelming spectacle that has plagued most recent movie musicals; it's in vogue now, but Spielberg challenges us to experience a slower, more intimate, gritty reality much as if we are present with the characters in the same darkened auditorium. It's a riveting, engrossing experience.

As someone keenly fascinated by the adaptation process and effect, I'm going to focus now on that instead of a synopsis or anything else. Because, ultimately, this new movie is extremely faithful to the original. In fact, it occasionally felt like a shot-for-shot remake but with better cinematography (by the amazing Janusz Kaminski), updated choreography (by Justin Peck, who still honors the Jerome Robbins original), and effective, timely, and thoughtful dialogue (by the incomparable Tony Kushner). Not much has changed, but the bits that have changed make a lot more sense. They help the flow of the story by offering motivation, explanation, and background. In fact, with these ideas in mind, I'd compare it to Beauty and the Beast (2017) as an example of improving what needed help but simply polishing the rest. Shall we take a look?

We begin with Spielberg's historian side as we swoop around a wrecking ball and a pile of rubble that was once part of San Juan Hill; the camera eventually pulls over a sign declaring the site the future home of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. For those who know its history, this was gentrification at its most blatant, pushing immigrant communities out of the district in the name of high-brow art and business for wealthy whites. Emerging from the rubble as dusty wretches, the gang of white Jets led by a surprisingly sensitive Riff (Mike Faist, surely soon to be a major star) take to the streets with the iconic dancing synonymous with the title. They're angry about their "turf" getting taken over "by people we don't like." Spielberg's iconographic shorthand reveals a lot in a short amount of time, as when one of the Jets removes a Puerto Rican business sign, revealing an old Irish business sign underneath.

Then we're thrust in amongst the Sharks, a competing gang of Puerto Ricans, fighting to have a place in a city determined to ignore or kick them out. David Alvarez imbues his character Bernardo, the Shark leader, with fresh levels of urgent protectiveness, especially over his sister Maria (stunning new star Rachel Zegler) and girlfriend Anita (a brilliant Ariana DeBose). He has to be protective because Maria is coming of age and wants to meet boys; he forbids her to meet any gringos, but at the dance she meets her Romeo, a beautiful white boy named Tony (Ansel Elgort in his best performance yet). These characters are given more backstory and more rounded characterizations than their Oscar-winning counterparts (Bernardo and Anita, that is) in the original. 

Speaking of which. Tony lives in the basement of the store where he also works. But Doc, the kindly old white man of the original, is notably absent here though his name remains above the door. Instead, the store his owned by his widow, Valentina, a Puerto Rican woman played by the effervescent Rita Moreno, who won the Oscar as Anita in '61 and frankly could do so again this year. Of course Tony has changed his ways under her watchful care; how could he not? And then, near the end of the film, when this movie gives her the chance to sing "Somewhere," I openly wept. It's the single best thing this film could have done, and she nails it.

But the movie gets a lot of other things right, too. The context of "Something's Coming" is changed to be less about fate and more about Valentina's hopes for Tony's future. "Gee, Officer Krupke" is set in the precinct, allowing the boys to tear up the office they so despise. The showstopping number "America" gets pulled down off the nighttime rooftop after the dance and into the bright, sunlit streets the morning after. It's a rousing, vibrant number not unlike scenes of In the Heights earlier this year, and if there is one thing that really gets me going in any movie musical, it's a huge number on the streets. Much later, "I Feel Pretty" is put back into its original slot in the plot, immediately after the rumble resulting in the deaths of Riff and Bernardo, making Maria's naïve optimism unbearably ironic. At first I was angry that "Cool" was taken from Ice after the rumble, but now delivered by Tony to Riff before the rumble shows that he actually was trying to stop the impending fight and even broke faith with the Jets at the most crucial point (fun fact: the stage show also has this song before the rumble, but it's Riff calming everyone down while they wait in Doc's store).

These changes, for me, make the story more accessible, more realistic than the original. Everything else is essentially the same. It's endlessly faithful, to the point of improving what needed to be improved. There is a lot more spoken Spanish -- none of which is subtitled -- and a lot more urgency to the proceedings, even though the pace is as deliberate as it always was. Add sumptuous costumes, performers giving their all to the craft, and a team of pure geniuses behind the camera, and West Side Story isn't just one of the best movies this year. It's one of the best movie musicals ever made.