Steven Spielberg is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated, genius directors of the last 40 years. You cannot deny the ability proven by movies such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan and Schindlers List. He may be the greatest director of all time. I will leave that to history to judge. So it was with a very large dose of shock and surprise when I heard he was brought on board to direct a remake of West Side Story in 2018, I was aghast.
I have to admit at this point that there are some movies I consider sacred. The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Back to the Future are among them but right up there with them is the 1961 utterly astonishing movie interpretation of the musical, West Side Story. I have watched and loved that movie more times than I can count and I adore it. I therefore had no conceivable idea what led to the decision to attempt a remake of it.
That said, if you’re going to remake a classic, then get a safe pair of hands to direct it that will provide the reverence such a work requires. Spielberg is that pair of hands.
What has been produced as a result is a truly glorious movie. No attempt has been made to take it to a different era, nor make any significant changes to the storyline. A few aspects have been altered; odd lyrics here and there, the ordering of some of the pieces, the replacement of ‘Doc’ with Valentina played oh so well by the wonderous Rita Morena who played Anita in the original movie. The parts that have been altered could be argued that they’re more authentic to the original stage play and I can buy that. Nothing felt out of place and the flow of the story was not impacted in any way.
Make no mistake, this is a wonderful film. The singing has a distinct ‘amateur’ feel about it but that works. This is gritty, New York City in the middle of gang warfare so pristine voices would not be appropriate. Indeed, all the casting is fantastic, especially Rachel Ziegler and Ariana DeBose as Maria and Anita respectively.
However, and it’s a very, VERY large HOWEVER, this movie mostly succeeded in making me exceedingly angry. Since nothing about the story has fundamentally changed, this like yet another Disney-inspired remake of a classic in the same way as they have been producing live action versions of their classic, animated movies. In the same way that a live-action Dumbo was trying to produce a new-age ‘classic’ to replace the original, animated, true ‘classic’, this movie tries to simply eclipse the original in execution. It utterly fails to do so.
The original movie had a relevance to it, it was made at a time, for that time and featuring a cast that were relevant to that time. It was perfect, it was beautiful. This feels like a movie that is simply trying to be a 4K ‘directors cut’ enhancement of the original movie but that has no basis for being required as it simply loses so much of the magic that was there previously.
The only exception to this is what Spielberg was able to achieve with Morena. The new character of Valentina genuinely feels “right” and you can tell from her first appearance in the film that this meant the world to Rita. Can she dance like she used to? Can she sing like she used to? Of course not. But the re-imagining and re-placement of “Somewhere”, being sung by her as a reflection on the horror of what happened at the rumble as well as her own characters history (no spoilers here) is executed so utterly beautifully that I had a tear running down my cheek.
So I hate this film? Absolutely not. However, it’s a film that I wish had not been conceived although what I was just saying about Rita Morenas character in the film does provide an extremely large, shining beacon of justification in making it.
If you have never seen the original movie, I hope you watch this and marvel in the story. It is wonderful, it is beautifully created. However, if you have seen the original movie, then stay with the memory of that. Seeing this version is unnecessary and will only cause angst.
