Full disclosure, I was and am a HUGE fan of the 1961 WEST SIDE STORY. I know it’s every detail, every word of every lyric, every emotional cue. Rita Moreno was the iconic Rita. So, I went to see this new Spielberg directed, Moreno produced, 2021 version with more curiosity than expectation. Not forgetting that WEST SIDE STORY was inspired by Shakespeare’s ROMEO AND JULIET, the general structure of the movies is the same yet contemporary and musical. The 2021 version is grittier. The context of the drama is more developed, setting it in a disappearing New York neighbourhood, which makes the rivalry of the street gangs more a matter of life and death that either the play or the first movie. Rita Moreno is very much celebrated in this new film, with a newly created character and a reallocation of a song. Two musical numbers in the 2021 version paled when compared to the 1961: (1) the dance at the gym didn’t have the battle fever of the original (probably solely due to the incomparable Rita Moreno in 1961) and by moving Tony and Maria’s first meeting from the actual dance to behind the bleachers it lost the transcendent quality of their love at first sight; and (2) Maria’s “I Feel Pretty” scene being moved from a Dress Shop (where the girls worked) to a department store (where they were but a small part of a cleaning crew), despite the clever use of store displays, changed the context from dreaming of a wedding to dreaming of blending into Americana. I also felt that 2021 suffered from the loss of (a) priest, which stripped away marriage vows in a church for promises in a museum (??), and (b) the the loss of the potion separated the lovers and the tragic death of love at the end. HOWEVER, ALL COMPARISONS OR DISAPPOINTMENTS EVAPORATED when Rachel Zegler’s soaring soprano lifted Maria’s first note. It was so beautiful I had to remind myself to breath. Her duets with Amsel Elgort were transporting. What would have been a rating of 7 (good) was made 9 (superb) by Zegler’s performance, making this a must see film. [Musical Drama]

what a wonderful surprise of 2021 my godss
- I won't lie, when I heard that Spielberg was going to direct this musical I was afraid it would be a complete disaster, that's because I'm only used to Spielberg's side in Lincoln, Jaws, Shindler's List and saving private ryan, the melodragon, baby.. ..so when I was directing I was intrigued that I hadn't seen him in this kind of film
- the choreography, the songs reinvented in new voices, the lighting, the colors from the movie, the choreographiesssss EVERYTHING ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL!!! Is the 1961 classic a classic?? without a doubt, but here we have a quality remake that knows how to do justice to its primary work.
- about the acting I NEED to mention Mike Faist (who had not won me over on the Panic series) who left me completely attracted to his Riff, Ariana DeBose as Anita is sensational, she is extremely competent in bringing a character to life already so well played in 1961 by Rita Moreno, David Alvarez is a Bernardo much better and more fun than the one in 1961 and Rachel Zegler is beautiful beautiful beautiful like Maria... Ansel, despite bringing a Tony with a predominantly sweeter side, passionate and doesn't show so much his ''gang leader'' side, badboy etc... I really loved to see him completely surrendered to his heart and his love
- I was completely in love with this new version and how it became necessary 10\10 without fear of being happy

[7.4/10] I have high expectations when I go to see a Steven Spielberg movie. I have higher expectations when he’s adapting one of the most iconic and well-known American musicals. I have higher expectations still when people I know and trust rave about what he and his collaborators have done with this classic piece of Americana.

And Spielberg’s *West Side Story* is...quite good. He finds great performers who can sing and dance and emote with aplomb. There’s some boffo sequences that champion the movement of his performers or find the comedy amid the scruffiest of situations. The changes made do an excellent job of updating the classic without disrupting it. He’s a good director. He made a good movie. It’s what he does.

But then there’s the expectation game. I walked into it expecting to be wowed. I walked away pleased but thoroughly whelmed. It’s hard not to be a little disappointed by that.

What’s funny, though, is that it’s hard to point to anything particularly wrong with the film. The most you can say is something that’s true for the original film adaptation, and the original play, and even *Romeo and Juliet* and the other influences for each -- the young lovers are kind of boring and random.

So many of the revisions introduced by Spielberg and screenwriter tony Kushner are to flesh out parts of the characters and setting that give them more depth and resonance. But the core of the film remains Tony and Maria, and they are still a couple of teenagers who see each other once from across the room and declare their undying devotion to each other.

You don’t have to have been their age in 1961 to have grown tired of cinematic insta-love. Anchoring a story around a romance of the utmost importance that unfolds in a couple of days by two kids who have nothing in common beyond thinking the other is cute is building a house on sand. But that’s not Spielberg and Kushner’s fault; that’s just in the manual for *West Side Story*.

There’s only two things you can really slate the modern team for here. One is that Ansel Elgort feels miscast. He’s not bad necessarily (though his singing is a little off now and then). But so many of the performers the movie deploys have this irrepressible charisma and magnetic on-screen presence. In a crowd of actors who snap, crackle, and pop, Elgort has a tendency to fade into the woodwork in his simple competence, which doesn’t help the always-present but still underdeveloped young romance at the heart of the film either.

The other is that there’s an air of artificiality which permeates the film. Spielberg is a master at making the outlandish and stylistic seem real, but at times, in *West Side Story*, you can see the proverbial strings. Sometimes, that’s a feature, not a bug. Musicals are, by their very nature, at least a touch fantastical, and leaning into that is a good thing. But something about the aesthetic in particular can come off plastic and manicured despite an effort to play as hard-scrabble and imaginative, which detracts from some of the more dramatic or intimate moments in the film.
That doesn’t mean Spielberg and legendary cinematographer Janusz Kamiński are slouches here. They and an expert team of choreographers and other creatives reimagine the iconic “America” with tremendous communal flair. They find unique, self-contained stagings for the “Gee Officer Krupke” number. And the use of color and shadow catches the eye. There’s still a ton of great images to enjoy here.

Likewise, aside from Elgort, the casting here is superb. Mike Faist injects a self-immolating sadness to Riff, replete with a low-simmering affection for Tony, that makes a potentially flat character feel more well-rounded Ariana DeBose has rightfully collected plaudit after plaudit for her electric turn as Anita, with self-possessed sass out the wazoo but also a wounded heart that comes through in the right moments. And Rita Moreno hasn’t lost a step since the original, becoming the heart and soul of the piece as a new character, Valentina, who’s a reinterpretation of an old one, given new life via the script and the performance.

Best of all, Spielberg and company recognize and reinterpret *West Side Story* as a tale of corruption -- not in the sense of money changing hands amid the venal -- but in the sense of poverty and tribal strife grinding up beautiful, hopeful things under the wheels of progress. The turf our heroes are fighting over is soon to be demolished anyway, making the war for a diminishing slice of the pie seem even more futile. The real enemies of the piece are unseen and out of reach, driving home the senselessness of why the Jets and the Sharks choose to turn on one another.

In the process, Riff’s near-death-wish and Bernado’s prize fighting dreams blend together in one pointless, accidental gesture that wreaks havoc in the shadow of impending destruction. It turns Anita’s belief in the American dream into a curdled resentment for the cruelty her countrymen are capable of. It takes away Chino’s bright future apart from such sectarian violence and turns him into a vengeful killer. It pulls Tony back into the muck he’d tried so hard to move on from, reducing his second chance at a better life to ash. And it transforms Maria’s hope and belief that there’s no reason someone from her neighborhood shouldn’t fall in love with someone from his into a burning hatred.

In brief, Spielberg’s rendition of *West Side Story* isn’t a simple romantic tragedy or even a story of racial strife brought to the doorstep in bloody terms. It is a story of hope and optimism filed down to a piercing point, the bright and idealistic crushed amid so much rubble from wrecking balls which exist high above such personal dramas and losses. There’s added nuance that makes the tale salient again sixty-five years after the musical’s debut.

And still, I walked in expecting something extraordinary and found something that is, merely, very good. There’s no shame in that. Maybe it’s simply a combination of overfamiliarity and consistent quality to the point of raised expectations. Leonard Bernstein’s music and Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics are as good as ever, but are practically burned into the American psyche by now. Spielberg’s skills as a filmmaker are so polished and perfected by now that they seem effortless. At some point, the known good doesn’t seem good enough anymore for whatever reason. *West Side Story* finds novel new spins on the familiar and deploys them well, but like two teenagers fawning over one another as though it’s true love, doesn’t quite live up to the hype.

West Side story: Gritty morality tale with an emotional punch. 85%

Not having seen the stage production of "West Side story" or its first film version, which I understand is regarded as a classic, I really don't have a point of comparison for this new film version of the long-running musical theatre staple. Of course, with the US being so effective at exporting its pop culture around the world, I was aware of songs and scenes from the original Hollywood film, which had positive associations for me, even though I live in Australia.

The story was inspired by a much earlier tale, which I won't mention here because...spoilers. In any case, the second film version (presumably...at least as far as US film versions go) of this story is set in a slum in New York in the 1950s (the "West Side" of the title). The setting is very nicely established, with an opening shot of some partially destroyed buildings which a sign states are being demolished to make way for the gentrification of the area. The flats in the high-rise buildings nearby have a suitably "slummy" look without the aesthetic being overdone. From out of this no man's land emerges what turns out be a gang of Anglo background, known as "The Jets". You can tell that they they are bad because they soon terrorise the neighbourhood with dancing and singing, with no one daring to stop them. It has to be said, at this point, the realisation of a musical in the modern era hasn't lost my interest. Fit young blokes dancing and singing and clicking their fingers in time in the streets of a big city doesn't seem all that ridiculous now.

We soon learn that The Jets have a rival group which they want to remove from 'their turf', a gang known as "The Sharks", which are of Puerto Rican ethnicity. The basis of The Jets' animosity to The Sharks is basically an issue of race (and that is also the basis of the police department's animosity towards The Sharks as well). The Sharks do not 'belong' in the US and they should 'go back to where they came from'. The first encounter we see between these two rival gangs is a violent one and it's pretty clear that things will escalate from here between them.

If you're thinking that nothing thrown into this tinderbox could make it any more flammable, well...enter Tony (played by Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler). Tony is the co-founder of The Jets but after a stint in prison for a shocking beating he gave to an Eyptian man, he is trying to be a better person, now holding down a steady job and no longer involved in his gang's activities. Maria is the sister of Bernardo (David Alvarez), a man who is trying to fight his way out of the slum (literally). Bernardo has a chip on his shoulder about the Anglos, who make life difficult for his community. He plays the father-figure at the flat that he shares with his girlfriend and Maria. The prospect of Maria dating a "gringo" is unacceptable to him, as we later find out when...Tony and Maria meet at a dance event and...instantly fall in love. He is also the leader of The Sharks.

That moment when Tony and Maria fall in love at first sight is very sweetly done. Maria, as played by Zegler, seems like an old-fashioned Disney princess at first, being very timid but then being quite forward...perhaps like a (modern day?) Disney princess? (Since I'm not well-versed in Disney films about princesses, I'll have to defer to the judgement of people more informed than me on this subject.) The lyric from the song "Hurts so good" by John Cougar comes to mind about her: "you ain't as green as you are young". Zegler/Maria is very attractive in a winsome way. Director Steven Spielberg has really captured a winning performance from her. It occurred to me after writing down my initial thoughts on this film that Zegler would be a worthy nominee for "Best actress" at awards time. Even though I haven't really seen many 'quality' films this year, I think I know a quality performance when I see one and I don't think that a best actress award for her would be undeserved.

If you think that Maria couldn't be any more adorable, well, you should hear her sing. She has a lovely voice, in my view. To me, she's the standout voice of the musical. Elgort tends towards falsetto at times. On the subject of the music, I'd say that I'm pretty sure that if you just wanted to listen to the musical on CD or whatever, then there would be better versions of that from previous productions of this story, whether on stage or screen. By that I mean perhaps the music elsewhere is bolder, brassier or arranged more pleasingly (to my ears, at least) and that would apply to the vocal performances as well. However, since I haven't heard other versions, I can't recommend one for you.

It also later occurred to me how similar Tony and Bernardo are (which I've retrospectively alluded to in my earlier comments about how both of them plan to get out of the slum). Another point of comparison with Bernardo would be The Jets' new leader, "Riff" (Mike Faist). They both mirror each other as far as attitudes to "the other" goes.

In any case, just when Tony thought he was out, Riff pulls him back in again, as far as gang activities go.

I liked this film and had moments of recognition with it, with regards to clicking fingers and many songs. One event which did jar with me was how Maria reacted to Tony when she heard some fateful news about him. It just didn't ring true to me. Maybe with a greater passage of time it could have worked. Later, when the police officer goes over the whole timeline, the short duration was a shock too.

The film was on track for a score of 80% from me but since the drama near the end of the film elicited emotion from me, I added another 5% to my score to reflect that.

Random notes:

*Is the ending different to previous versions of this story? If it is, you can either read it as a return to sanity as far as character motivation goes or as a Steven Spielberg tendency.

*There is some realism to the violence, so not suitable for very young children, I don't think.

*I couldn't quite tell if there was some strong swearing at times or if it was toned down.

*Curios: 5c for a Milky Way chocolate bar, $15 for a fashionable store scarf, I think.

Good production. I liked the performers, except Ansel Elgort as the lead male, Tony, who I found to be uninteresting. I never got into the story or the songs.

A couple of other thoughts:

* Carefully choreographed Broadway-style dance routines severely diminish the menace of street gangs.
* Love at first sight is a myth and is a very bad reason to kill or be killed. (Intense attraction, curiosity, and lust at first sight, sure, but love takes longer.)