For everyone who has suffered through a bad production of “West Side Story,” there’s Steven Spielberg’s new version – an exciting, relevant remake that is as riveting as any thriller on screen.
The reason it works (and stage productions don’t) is because Spielberg wasn’t afraid to mix things up – move songs, create characters and change the choreography.
The result is much more than a “Romeo and Juliet” ballet. It’s a look at race relations, gentrification and immigration. It’s also a masterpiece of cinematography, thanks to Janusz Kaminiski. Scenes move and rarely settle down. That creates tension and makes the film’s resolution impossible to predict.
Is it better than the original film? Yes. Does it cover new turf? Again, yes. But at the heart of the musical is a simple love story complicated by the lovers’ extended “families.”
Maria (Rachel Zegler) meets Tony (Ansel Elgort) at a dance and, quickly, they’re smitten. She, however, is Puerto Rican; he’s Polish and they’re in 1957 New York, where turf wars are just as obvious as they are today.
Her friends and family don’t like his; her brother, Bernardo (David Alvarez), is just as influential as Tony’s friend, Riff (Mike Faist). While Tony and Maria come together the bleachers, the others are battling on the gym floor. Plans spill out for a showdown and, soon, the wheels are in motion for one of those oh-so-familiar rumbles.
But Spielberg doesn’t make any of this familiar. He sets scenes in interesting places and changes Maria’s friend, Anita (Ariana DeBose), into much more than Bernardo’s girlfriend. Rita Moreno, who played Anita in the original film, turns up here as Valentina (a character who wasn’t in the original), the owner of a drug store and sounding board for Tony. As someone who has seen these struggles for years, Valentina becomes the last best hope for everyone.
While Zegler and Elgort go through paces with relative ease, they’re outdone by DeBose and Faist, who are remarkable. She helps us understand the toxic masculinity of the era; he imbues it. All arms and legs, Faist hardly seems like the kind of guy who could lead a gang. But once he gets into the mix, the Jets take off. His voice, alone, makes this film seem like something new.
Toss in a jaw-dropping set (that duplicates blocks of New York that were bulldozed for Lincoln Center), dances by Justin Peck (that pay homage to the Jerome Robbins originals) and a screenplay by Tony Kushner (that’s gritty and heartfelt) and this “West Side Story” towers over the other.
Credit Spielberg, too, for not shying away from something that had seemingly been frozen in amber. The Jurassic “West Side Story” was merely a jumping off point for this superior one. It’s one of the year’s best films and proof you can go home again – as long as you’re willing to make the place better than you found it.
