Movie Review: 'West Side Story' is Vibrant Popcorn Entertainment

The big question surrounding Steven Speilberg’s big budget adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s legendary musical, West Side Story was why? Why remake West Side Story? What about this 60’s era paean to 1950s, post World War 2 angst carries any appeal today? What justifies remaking a movie that has a beloved original that is about as good as the material could likely be? Having seen Speilberg’s West Side Story, I still don’t have a good answer for that question. But, I can’t say I wasn’t entertained or moved by the effort on display.

West Side Story tells the tale of star-crossed lovers, Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler), who find themselves on opposite sides of a turf war in a dying portion of New York City. On Tony’s side is a group of luckless Polish youth being pushed out of their neighborhoods by the creep of urban sprawl, they call themselves The Jets. On the other side are a group of Puerto Rican youths, relatively new to New York City but similarly disenfranchised and being pushed out of their neighborhoods.

For reasons that make sense to only them, the Jets and the Puerto Ricans, who call themselves The Sharks, blame each other for their problems. As for Tony, he’s just back from a year in jail after he nearly killed a man in a fistfight. Tony longs to stay out of trouble but his welcome home is his oldest friend, Riff (Mike Faist) urging him back into the gang war against The Sharks, led by Bernardo (David Alvarez). Though he wants no part of the gang life anymore, Tony does eventually relent to attending a dance aimed at bringing the Polish and the Puerto Ricans into peaceful coexistence.

It is here where Tony meets and falls madly in love with Maria. Maria, unfortunately for Tony, happens to be Bernardo’s little sister. Naturally, Bernardo wants his sister to stay away from white boys and especially to stay away from Tony. But, the heart wants what it wants and after Tony searches Maria’s neighborhood for her and serenades her on the fire escape, she’s just as head over heels in love as he is and the two make plans to escape the neighborhood together. But first, Tony wants to find a way to stop Riff from going into a rumble with Bernardo.

This leads to a showdown between the Jets and the Sharks where two people are killed and Tony is responsible for one of the deaths and Bernardo the other. Then the movie spins off into further tragedy as news of the rumble spreads, recriminations are planned, and executed, and everyone sings and dances to some of the most amazing musical sequences in Broadway and musical history. Indeed, even if you’ve never seen West Side Story before you will likely find at least two or three of these songs have seeped into your subconscious via pop cultural osmosis.

The music of West Side Story is as undeniably brilliant as ever in this new iteration of West Side Story. Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler sing beautifully and you can’t help but be swept up in the whirlwinds of romance and hormones at play in their heady, youthful romance. What is lacking unfortunately is a dramatic grounding with either Riff or Bernardo. Both are hard-headed and come off rather ridiculous in their seemingly unmotivated desires to kill each other. I would have liked another scene that might have deepened the divide between the Jets and the Sharks to give the plot a deeper sense of the tragedy unfolding.

If I am to venture a guess as to why Riff and Bernardo’s motivations are left a little murky, beyond straightforward racism, there is a distinct sense of Steven Speilberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner perhaps offering sly commentary on our modern political divide. Are the Jets and Sharks intended to be conservatives and liberals? Is the duel to the death between Bernardo and Riff intended to be a metaphor for two sides unwilling to listen to each other work together until there is a body count involved?

Perhaps, but if that is the intention, the attempt is rather limp. Whereas the weekend box office contender to West Side Story, Don’t Look Up is a take no prisoners critique of our modern political warfare, West Side Story’s metaphor comes off as intentionally murky and not wanting to offend either side. Indeed, it is so murky that I cannot say with any degree of certainty that this is the metaphor that Speilberg and Kushner are going for.

Putting the metaphors aside however, West Side Story is undeniably great popcorn entertainment. It may indeed be inessential in a world where the Robert Wise movie exists but it is nice seeing West Side Story remounted and beautifully rendered. On top of that, we get the lovely sight of the legendary Rita Moreno returning to the film universe that helped assure her further place in the Hollywood canon. Moreno is the most powerful aspect of West Side Story, a veteran presence with pathos to spare. Moreno makes everyone in a scene with her better, especially Ansel Elgort who becomes deeply sympathetic through the eyes of Moreno as the operator of Doc’s Pharmacy, the spiritual home of The Jets from the original movie.

West Side Story is grand entertainment bustling with terrific music and exceptional choreography by Tony Award winning choreographer Justin Peck. Speilberg’s work hasn’t been this vibrant and alive since Jurassic Park as the colors pop and the characters ripple with energy in ways that his more staid modern historical period have grown more gray and dour. That’s not to say that Speilberg’s most recent films are bad, they most certainly aren’t, but they are gray and ponderous, especially compared to the color and spectacle of West Side Story.

West Side Story opened in theaters nationwide on December 10th, 2021.