Director Steven Spielberg's remake of
the classic musical West Side Story is a lively adaptation of the
Broadway musical and actually superior to the 1961 Best Picture Winner. This
remake's screenplay is by Tony Kushner and, while being faithful to the source
material, he effectively adds more dimension to the characters. Of course, the
main ingredient is still intact—the wonderful music of Leonard Bernstein and
Stephen Sondheim's beautiful lyrics. And Best Supporting Actress Winner for the
original film, Rita Moreno, is given a very nice role in this version.
West Side Story is Romeo and
Juliet updated to the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York of the
1950s. A white street gang known as The Jets has a rivalry with the Puerto
Rican gang, The Sharks, from the other side of town. Things get complicated
when ex-Jets member Tony (Ansel Elgort) falls for Maria (Rachel Zegler), who is
the sister of The Sharks leader, Bernardo (David Alvarez).
The 1961 movie is good, but a major
drawback was having white actors in brown face playing Puerto Ricans. Spielberg
corrects this in his version by casting actors of Hispanic heritage.
All the actors here are phenomenal.
Zegler and Elgort are perfect as the star-crossed lovers. Also very memorable
are Alvarez, Mike Faist as Jets leader Riff, and Ariana DeBose as Bernardo's
girlfriend Anita. It's DeBose who does a splashy rendition of the song
"America," and that right there is worth the price of admission.
