Steven Spielberg's detractors sometimes reductively complain his movies like "Jaws" and "Jurassic Park" cheapen cinema, rendering it a mere showcase of special effects. Perhaps those critics might want to adjust their corrective lenses. The actual amount of screentime in those movies devoted to sharks and dinosaurs is remarkably sparse. The mechanical shark in the former barely worked, but he made viewers care about the three men hunting it down.
It's this same trait that makes his remake of "West Side Story" worth catching. I must confess that I grew up hearing the songs and even played a character -- the social worker Glad Hand -- in my high school production of the play. (The actor who played Bernardo in our production was an Australian exchange student, and his drawl sounded cool even if he would never be mistaken for Hispanic.)
John Astin, the first Gomez Addams, was uncredited in my role in the, 1961 movie. He played the role as an oblivious outsider to the ethnic tensions in late 1950s,-early 1960s New York. Like Mike Iveson in Spielberg's film, I played Glad Hand like a nervous wreck. (I'm really happy my performance died on the stage of Paola High School in Kansas instead of enduring on the big screen.)
Back to the point, Spielberg and Tony Kushner ("Angels in America" and Spielberg's "Munich" and "Lincoln") follow the storyline from Arthur Laurents' original stage play and keep the breathtaking songs by Leonard Bernstein and the recently departed Stephen Sondheim. What's intriguing about this new interpretation is that the characters are a bit more rounded and have more clearly articulated reasons for why they fight.
Racism is only part of the reason the white Jets and Puerto Rican Sharks tangle on the streets of New York. The turf they feud over is quickly being devoured by the new Lincoln Center and luxury apartments that either side can only dream of occupying. Bigotry often rears its head when basic resources aren't easy to get.
It's no wonder that the Jet's leader Riff (Mike Faist) and Bernardo (David Alvarez) of the Sharks regularly tangle. Despite the animosity, Riff's pal Tony (Ansel Elgort) soon becomes obsessed with Bernardo's little sister Maria (Rachel Zegler), and she reciprocates.
Getting together is a major challenge because their mutual friends think nothing of killing someone for simply befriending a member of a rival gang.
If you've seen the movie Robert Wise ("The Sound of Music") and Jerome Robbins directed, you know where it's going. Kushner even sprinkles in a few nods to the original Shakespeare play while he's at it. Fortunately, he manages to keep his own tale fresh.
When I encountered people grumbling about how politically correct the new production was, I had to roll my eyes. The social commentary was already baked in in the Arthur Laurents play. You might even find some in "Romeo and Juliet" if you look hard enough.
It is, however, refreshing to see performers who aren't masquerading gringos like Natalie Wood and the Sharks and their extended families.
None appears to be Australian.
It's also easier to get into a film where characters burst into song if the actress playing Maria looks like she's a teenager. Wood, who was in her early 20s seemed a tad mature, and Ukrainian, for the role. Zegler was just a year or two younger during shooting, and it makes a world of difference.
At least Wood's presence gave Marni Nixon a chance to show off her own vocal chops because the actress lacked Nixon's vocal chops.
Corey Stoll gives the cynical cop Lt. Schrank more than a disdain for the gangs and prejudice against Puerto Ricans. You can see he's tired of telling parents why their teens have died in the endless series of feuds. Similarly, Bernardo is a boxer and clearly wants more from life than gang banging. He may be proud to be a Shark, but it's obviously a dead end.
While Spielberg is known for putting the scores of John Williams to good use, he has great instincts for how to stage the dance numbers. "America" and other highlights from the first movie are vividly captured, and Bernstein's rousing melodies and Sondheim's expectedly clever lyrics have hardly aged.
As frustrated lover Tony, Elgort is a mixed blessing. On screen, he looks a little too scrubbed to have spent time upstate in the penal system. Faist looks threatening, as do the rest of the Sharks and Jets.
On the other hand, Elgort is tall and broad-shouldered and looks like he'd make short work of an opponent. The new Tony seems a tad more volatile than his predecessor. His dreams of running away with Maria may be little more than that.
Ariana DeBose is terrific as Anita, Bernardo's smarter and possibly tougher, girlfriend. That's saying something considering that the original big screen Anita, Rita Moreno, who won an Oscar for the part, has a substantial role this time. Moreno's Valentina runs the drug store where many of the teenagers can be found and like them dreams of a better life even though she has outlived generations of the feud.
People often go to musicals to escape the miseries of the real world, but Sondheim and now Spielberg bring real world issues into the art form. That's certainly worth breaking into song.
‘West Side Story’
87 Cast: Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, Rita Moreno, Brian d’Arcy James, Corey Stoll, Mike Faist, Josh Andres Rivera, Iris Menas
Director: Steven Spielberg
Rating: PG-13, for some strong violence, strong language, thematic content, suggestive material and brief smoking
Running time: 2 hours, 36 minutes
Playing theatrically
Rita Moreno, who won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for playing Anita in Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ 1961 film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s and Stephen Sondheim’s groundbreaking Broadway musical “West Side Story” plays the newly created character Valentina in Steven Spielberg’s remake.Photo by Niko Tavernise