West Side Story (2021)

Steven Spielberg’s first ever musical is a serious retelling of one of cinema’s best musical adaptations, West Side Story. A sisyphean task for any other filmmaker, Spielberg truly gives it his best with great camerawork, spectacular set design, and a wonderful cast. Where it falters, though, is its inevitable relation to the 1961 classic.

In a bold twist, the 2021 remake focuses more on the conflict than the romance. The Jets and Sharks are fleshed out in new ways, representing their positions in society and class with much more authentic set pieces. Both gangs have visually clear identities to their purpose in New York. The Jets, being completely chaotic low-lifes, wander the ruins of their fathers’ neighborhoods, causing trouble wherever they wish. Their clothes are torn and covered in rubble-dust. The Sharks, though immigrants, are the ones that have a place in the city. They have jobs, and box for extra cash whenever they can squeeze it in their schedule. The New York of this film feels real. No doubt in part to the success of Lin Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights, the emphasis on the Puerto Rican neighborhoods bursting with color and life. Although it might not be as fantastically vibrant as the 1961 film, the texture in the chipped paint and chain-link fences make the problems between the gangs feel as real as the universal situation it actually represents.

Committing to reality has been a common approach to live-action Musicals recently, which I believe is a miscommunication found in the success of the most recent Musical boom. It started with the Disney live-action remakes and now poisons the dance numbers in every upcoming, Broadway adaptation. This film especially commits to omitting the fantasy of music. “Maria” shows Tony dancing on basketball courts and alleyways, whereas in the 1961 original, he is so lost in his love that the city vaporizes into radiating flares of color. His love blinds him to the surroundings, the very surroundings that will lead to his death. Also in the original, when Tony meets Maria, both sides of the gym suddenly disperse as they transport themselves into a dreamlike state to dance alone. No societal pressure or consequences exist in their dance. Meanwhile, in the original, because it has to exist in reality at all times, they sneak away behind the bleachers. It still works, but the emotion feels dry.

Why not exist in fantasy? That’s what the Musical is for! We accept when deadbeats and criminals go to a school dance, even though most are well over graduating age, and we accept it when they do ballet in the streets, but for some reason we draw the line at love creating day-dream locations? What? The live action The Lion King took away Scar’s Nazi-marching hyenas and Simba’s bombastic tower of giraffes, and the film was completely forgettable. Now we have Maria and Tony trapped in the reality of a gang war, unable to escape, even though their union is supposed to be proof against that very idea. How am I supposed to believe Tony can prevent the rumble when he can’t even escape the situation himself? Keeping the songs in reality breaks the reason for their escapism. “I want to be in America” is the only one that achieves the recreation of ‘dreaming’ with big dance numbers and a change in color scheme, but that peak is squashed by “Quintet” replacing the awesome red-wash lighting in the original with a boring, CGI sunset. Reality is boring, that’s why Musicals are so exciting.

Spielberg’s recent films have found little acclaim or success in the past two decades. How he filmed West Side Story (2021) feels like a return to form. Several shots bring back the vision of 80s cinema, which actually fits perfectly with the 50s era story. Just like Stand By Me, Back to the Future, American Graffiti, and Grease, that 80s style of filming the post-war Americana with shiny cars and neon lights matches perfectly with this New York. Spielberg cleverly injects it into the frame, but also uses its nostalgia to highlight that past disappearing from the character’s lives. A new age is rising from the ashes of the familiar, but unfortunately for our Jets, it doesn’t take in strays, and it doesn’t speak english.

Spielberg’s directing uproots the stage-theater look of the play and puts the camera right into the action, allowing great close ups and sweeping dollies of flying dancers and fists. Its cinematic revision brings out more in the action, but does leave some dance sequences wanting without their necessary wide shot. At times, the scenes feel claustrophobic as the actors’ faces take up most of the screen. If there was more space to back away and watch the music unfold, it would have been a much more enjoyable experience. I admire what Spielberg wanted to do, but at times it betrayed this story’s Broadway origins.

When it comes to the film by itself, it is fantastic, but when looking at it as an adaptation of the musical, it gets weird. Being Spielberg’s first musical film, he sometimes uses the music at the wrong moments. Some songs are switched around in the order, making an awkward change of tone in one particular moment. Some songs are also sung by different characters and actually ruin the point of those songs. “Somewhere” is sang by the old store-owner rather than Tony consoling Maria… so the song of two lovers begging each other to stay in their lives is now sung by an old woman (who lost her lover, but that is not addressed in the actual film so there’s a disconnect with the meaning of the lyrics and what’s on screen). All of these are awkward nit picks, but it's in the ending where Spielberg makes the biggest mistake. The emotional climax is trampled under the music when it should be silent; Maria’s breakdown loses its weight because the score is telling her to wrap it up before the credits. It all feels rushed under muscle-memory, unlike the rest of the film where each scene takes the necessary time to build and live. It left me on a bad note. Even with so much good beforehand, the weak ending crashed all the energy the story earned along the way.

There’s too much to say about Ansel Elgort being in this film. Mainly, people are blaming the weak box-office opening on his sexual assault allegations, which I think is a misdirection of people’s anger towards him. This film tanked for a variety of reasons, him getting away with possible sexual assualt is not one of them. He is, however, a big reason why this film does not achieve the heights of the original. At best, he clumsily towers over everyone else with weak line deliveries, at worst, he stands and watches the rest of the film happen in front of him. I don’t know what they were thinking when casting Baby Driver in a musical, but the Baby Driver people fell in love with didn’t even show up to the set. His performance sticks out like a sore thumb, and he has no chemistry with Rachel Zelger. They tried to give Tony a backstory on why he left the Jets, and I think it works with Elgort’s performance, but in any other aspect of the character, he falls short. His dancing is only good in one of the songs, and his singing is too weak to stand next to Rachel Zelger’s amazing voice. This film fails to be like West Side Story because of this miscasting, and the fact that the financial failure is being put on him but for other reasons just seems like an emotional reaction to the wrong issues. If the accusations are true, I’m done following Elgort’s career, because apparently he is too.

I spoke more of its faults than its victories, but I will admit, this is the best remake in film since A Star is Born in 2018. The amount of effort and talent poured into this project is astounding, and New York never looked so beautiful. The actors that play Anita and Bernardo, Ariana DeBose and David Alvarez respectfully, are actually better and have more screen time, the cops and Jets are more fleshed out in both their hatred and exhaustion, and the Sharks feel like they belong in New York, whether they enjoy their place or not. It is a solid film with a great story, but nothing will ever beat the 1961 adaptation. Rachel Zegler is fantastic as Maria, but she didn’t have a chance at filling in Natalie Wood’s iconic shoes. The switching of songs muddies some of their meanings, and this switching also affects the pacing in confusing ways, but the final straw is Ansel Elgort as Tony. The romance just isn’t believable because of his performance, sending the whole ship down. I enjoyed watching this film, but if I ever want to witness the real experience of West Side Story, I’m sticking with the 1961 version.

Story Rating: 6/10

Character Rating: 7/10

Entertainment Rating: 6/10