When white teenager Tony (Ansel Elgort) falls in love with a Puerto Rican girl Maria (Rachel Zegler), he finds himself on a collusion course with his former life in the street gang the Sharks, which are in an escalating conflict with their Puerto Rican rivals, the Jets.
After watching this movie, I need to watch more musicals.
I have watched a few, and enjoy them, but I do not have the depth or breadth of knowledge of the genre, or musical theatre, as in this case.
West Side Story (1961) felt like an experiment, and I wanted to check out the recent remake.
On the surface, the changes are obvious, but so is a fidelity to the original film. There is a sense of a more specific context - the neighbourhood is being gentrified, with buildings destroyed. There is more Spanish dialogue, without subtitles.
Adapted by David Newman from Leonard Bernstein’s music, the score is broadly similar to the original. I started watching the remake after the original, and caught the same opening during the introductory sequence.
From my perspective, the most interesting aspect of the adaptation is the portrayal of the gangs.
The gangs come across as more dangerous, but also with specific motives and backgrounds:
The Jets are rootless - their hatred of the sharks is rooted in racism, and the obvious disdain for the fact that the Puerto Rican residents have created a sense of community.
The Sharks are presented as a response to the Jets’ aggression - they are protecting their community. David Alvarez’s Bernardo is a hero in the community, not because he runs a gang but because he is an actual celebrity - he is an upcoming prize fighter.
Spielberg’s blocking of the choreography creates more of a sense of danger in the standoffs between the gangs.
The same characters in the previous version felt lopsided - George Chakiris felt more like a fighter. Russ Tamblyn is great but he has no real sense of swagger.
With the Spielberg version, there is an emphasis on making the gangs more like gangs, thereby giving the central lovers something to fight against. There is more sense of consequences to the romance.
Tony feels more integrated into the neighbourhood. The business owner that Tony works for is Valentina (Rita Moreno), Doc’s wife, a Puerto Rican woman.
Tony has also been in prison for a year before the movie begins - he is trying to stay on the straight and narrow.
The film adds some more flesh on the bones of the central romance - Tony and Maria go on a date to the Cloisters, where they actually share some intimacy and sing ‘One Hand One Heart’.
This also gives Tony more motivation to stop the rumble.
Mike Faist gives Riff an air of unpredictability and violence. Unlike Tony, Riff has nothing. All he has is the gang.
When Riff gets a gun, there is a real sense of tension to the standoff between him and Tony. ‘Play it cool’ becomes a fight through one-upmanship as they grapple, circle each other and dare each other with death-defying stunts. It feels like there is a genuine fracture between Tony, Riff and the Jets.
It also means death is inevitable.
The film’s conception of Tony feels like it is almost clicking. Sadly, for various reasons, Ansel Elgort is never able to fully embody the character.
Ansel Elgort has been under a cloud for the last few years for allegations of sexual assault, which muddied the waters around the movie when it was released. Even putting his baggage aside, Elgort is a dud.
I am not that familiar with the theatrical production, but I have heard that Tony is a difficult role to make interesting. Richard Beymer was a bit weightless in the 1961 version, but he at least made some sense as a milquetoast romantic lead.
Everything that works about the Tony character here feels external to Elgort’s performance.
His presence also undermines the tone at certain points.
During Tony’s initial performance of ‘Maria’, there are small touches of humour peppered throughout - poking at the character’s self-absorption:
the woman annoyed after Tony disturbs the pigeons she is feeding
the old woman in the window who he mistakes for Maria
It would all work perfectly if not for Elgort, who’s dead eyed stare reflects concentration rather than infatuation.
It might be due to the effect of the runtime, but by the halfway point Elgort begins to make more sense - he works as a broken man trying to improve himself.
There is a moral dimension to the character - he has rejected violence, not just because of the literal consequences he faces, but because of the visceral effect of knowing he almost killed someone.
Enough about Tony.
Now to Maria.
Natalie Wood is a fine actress. She should not have been cast as Maria in the first place. She was dubbed by Marni Nixon. I cannot remember anything about her performance.
Rachel Zegler is charming and has a good voice. She is given a little more of a sense of agency - although it might just be that she has a more believable chemistry with the performers playing her brother and best friend.
She still feels a little short-changed compared to the material Elgort gets. Which is depressing.
The problem with the central couple is that they are moons orbiting planets - the planets being Anita, Bernardo and Riff.
It is a testament to Rita Moreno and Ariana DeBose that I am still surprised at how small Anita’s role is.
DeBose is great - she has a great voice and good chemistry with David Alvarez’s Bernardo.
If the film has a standout it is Faist as Riff. He is so distinct from Russ Tamblyn, and feels completely unique to this production.
He brings a listless energy, a nihilistic drive that is scary and compelling in equal measure. Tamblyn felt like a decent guy - Faist is a little boy in the body of a man.
His sad smile as he dies in Tony’s arms is one of the most memorable moments in the movie.
The deaths of Riff and Bernardo are where I was able to clarify my feelings about the whole movie:
At times the film’s grittier, more violent elements ground the musical - the bone-crunching fight after the death of the gang leaders - but then the filmmakers will attempt a more overtly theatrical style (see the same scene when the red of the police sirens lights up the salt factory in a way that evokes the 1961 film, or the shot of the silhouettes of the police crossing the bodies of Riff and Bernardo).
There is a weird distance to all of Spielberg’s more recent work that I cannot shake - sometimes it works with the material (The Post, Munich), but in a case like this it feels like Spielberg’s lost his sense of fun. There are times where he almost gets there, but the film never really warms up.
I have had this feeling for a while, but I wonder if cinematographer Janusz Kaminski is miscast for this variety of Spielberg picture.
He is a talented filmmaker and one of Spielberg’s longest-serving collaborators, but I would like to see Spielberg work with other people - there is a sharp, grey quality to Kaminski’s work that always seems present - this movie tries to reach for a bright colour palette, but there is a level of theatricality that seems just out of reach.
I enjoyed the movie, but there is something so close to the original picture that I do not think I could quite see it without having the original picture superimposed over it.
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