Here’s an unscrewupable recipe for success. Take one of the most popular musicals of all time and hand it over to one of the most successful directors in film history. Peanut butter? Meet jam. All that’s left is to sandwich this heavenly match between a cast that’s hungry for exposure and a set that feels realistically theatre-staged. Is this just another musical-become-movie? Yes, it sure is. But it shows us what musical-become-movies can look like when handled by first class professionals. They can look pretty. Oh so pretty.
For those of you who didn’t grow up playing the tree in every school play, here’s the gist of West Side Story: it’s Romeo and Juliet. Plain and simple, it’s what R&J would be if they existed 350 years later in a very racist America. Instead of Capulets and Montagues we have Puerto Ricans and Irish/Italian Americans. The Shark gang vs. the Jets. The browns and the whites. Their turf on – you guessed it – the west side of New York is being demolished to make room for
fancy, white people high rises. The dusty, poor, jobless locals in tight t-shirts are left to dance-fight over a shrinking piece of neighbourhood. Caught in the middle is doe-eyed Maria (Rachel Zegler), fresh off the boat and living with her brother, Bernado (David Alvarez), and his girlfriend, Anita (Ariana DeBose), in their tiny apartment with a stellar fire escape. Anita drags Maria to her first New York dance where, within minutes, she catches the eye of the tallest white boy in the room, Tony (Ansel Elgort). Maria and Tony hit if off like fire and gasoline, falling madly in love faster than you can say, “Terrible idea, kids.” Of course, Romeo and Jul– I mean, Tony and Maria, can’t be together like most Disney couples after just one day because their families are literally ready to rumble. West Side Story closes in on this love-at-first-sight relationship from 
two sides that are hungry for violence and desperate to show their neighbours who has the biggest… heart.
Although first staged in 1957, today feels like the perfect time to repurpose West Side Story in a fresh medium. Co-staring next to our theme of whirlwind romance is inequality and a society that clearly favours one gang over the other. To make it even more current, Spielberg cast non-binary actor, iris menas, as Anybodys, the little tag-along Jets wannabe who’s constantly rejected by the boys. So, let’s run a tally. Among the list of West Side Story’s discriminated outcasts, we have: the poor, the brown, the non-English speakers, the transgendered, the dumb, the smart, and the orphaned. It’s no wonder that this musical has been around for half a century when everyone can find something to relate to.
Still, this film could have gone wrong in so many ways if Spielberg’s magic wasn’t all over it. From those slow fade-to-blacks and orchestral swells, Spielberg’s signature dots every scene. He has a knack
for pulling our eye towards subtle spotlights to paint the perfect mood. West Side Story is a movie that feels like a musical; perfectly staged to let the talent tell the story.
And talent there is. Every cast member in West Side Story is a triple threat. Although some are still waiting for their voices to drop, not one note is out of pitch and not one toe brings less than 110% to the dance floor. West Side Story is a collection of Broadway’s best and a slice of high-quality theatre that we can savour from home. Fans of the musical are going to binge watch it again and again.
Plain old movie-lovers, on the other hand, will appreciate the product but may not add it to their permanent rotation. While West Side Story is an Oscar-nominee’s love child, it’s still a story we’ve heard before. It’s polished, but not fresh. We know where the story is going, we know how it ends, we know that this isn’t a feel-good adventure with suspense and surprises. West Side Story is a masterclass in staging, direction, and design, and for that it deserves high praise, but I doubt that I’ll be craving a re-watch. West Side Story is a 7/10.
Plenty of Popcorn 