It starts with the songs and the singers who voice them. Everything else is icing. And in all of Broadway history, you can’t get much better than the songs of West Side Story, the 1957 musical which became the 1961 film. Now Steven Spielberg has taken those songs by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim and matched them with amazing contemporary actors/singers for a result that’s even better than one could have hoped for.
Inspired by the star-crossed lovers of Romeo and Juliet, and notably from the rival families of that time which are rival gangs from the decaying neighborhood on Manhattan’s west side in this story. Puerto Ricans on one side and whites on the other. The Sharks and the Jets. I’ll spare you more synopsis, but it is largely the same as it ever was with screenwriter Tony Kushner making some tweaks and subtle updates without changing the time and place.
Spielberg opens with a crane and wrecking ball tearing down the tenement buildings to make way for what will be known as the Lincoln Center. Then the first dance sequence (Jets song) is so brilliantly choreographed that you think it can’t possibly sustain at this level for 2 ½ hours – but it does.
Something that always bothered me about the 1961 film, made before I was even born, was that I didn’t buy the cast as tough guys who could fight or even kill. The Jerome Robbins choreography and the pretty boy actors, chiseled features, tons of theatrical makeup, pristine white sneakers and effeminate mannerisms – I could never get past that. But those songs…
Here, Spielberg has given the fellas a bit more realism without sacrificing any of the elegant choreography. His Tony still looks like a matinee idol: Ansel Elgort was only known to me as an actor until now, but this dude can sing his ass off. The best example of his range is that most famous of Tony’s solo songs, Maria
Ariana DeBose crushes it as Anita (originally played by Rita Moreno who turns 90 on Saturday, and appears here as Valentina). The character’s signature song, America looks and sounds good on Ariana.
Newcomer Rachel Zegler plays Maria in her film debut. She is gorgeous and fits comfortably into the operatic numbers for which Maria is known.
It’s been a year of movie musicals, and I have to say that I have been far less moved than my colleagues by In The Heights and tick, tick… BOOM!, the latter seems like a done deal for a nomination for Andrew Garfield.
But give me the 64 year old musical with Bernstein’s classically oriented score (conducted here by the celebrated Gustavo Dudamel) and Sondheim’s lyrics that touch virtually every emotion on the spectrum. Give me an old-school director like Spielberg, who never shies away from the sentimental. Give me the cinematography of the now legendary Janusz Kami?ski
But most of all – give me these songs
West Side Story opens in theaters December 10th | It will stream in the New Year, stay tuned for further details on which service.
