★★★★☆
Typical Spielberg. Only he could manage to remake arguably the greatest musical of all time without falling flat on his face. On the contrary, he meets Bernstein and Sondheim’s Romeo and Juliet redux eye to eye, deftly shuffling a few numbers, adding a new character, dropping in a dash of political subtext, but otherwise approaching the spirit and the structure of the 1961 movie with unashamed reverence.
The frames thus drip with vintage Technicolor, as though they were recently unearthed from a Tinseltown vault. The 1950s New York locations are more 1950s than ever (courtesy of CGI augmentation). The standout songs are still ineffably poignant. The first rendition of Tonight, between Ansel Elgort’s lovestruck Tony and Rachel Zegler’s Maria, will bring tears to the eyes. The second, the Tonight Quintet, arrives just before the climactic rumble and is sung by opposing street gangs the Jets and the Sharks, and by Tony and Maria, and by Anita (Ariana DeBose). It’s a mesmerising blend of voices that will leave you whooping in the aisles — there are few sights more thrilling here than the two gangs, in formation, marching to camera and belting out an accusatory chorus of: “They beeee-gan it! They beeee-gan it!”
The dance sequences are lifted wholesale from choreographer Jerome Robbins’s 1961 set-ups, but expanded and elaborated by Justin Peck without straying from the classic routines. Even Elgort’s characterisation of Tony has that same hint of puppy-dog earnestness that made Richard Beymer’s original hero slightly gauche. The singer and newcomer Zegler matches her predecessor, Natalie Wood, for sheer camera-grabbing charisma, while her Colombian heritage is a natural boon that redresses some of the awkwardness of Wood, a white actress of Russian heritage, playing a Puerto Rican protagonist, with slightly crass Speedy Gonzalez accent.
Best of all, Zegler is a phenomenal singer (her vocal clips have gone viral) and thus easily outmuscles Wood’s characterisation — her singing voice was famously dubbed by Marni Nixon — while remaining faithful to the essence of the role. This is, in short, West Side Story as you’ve never seen it before, exactly as it was before, and more like before than ever.
And the changes? The song America comes later, which helps to alleviate the “second-half buzz kill” syndrome that has always troubled the source. Cool comes earlier, before the rumble, and is now Tony’s appeal for sober decision-making and clear heads instead of a nervous post-fight demand for calm in the face of police pressure. There’s a new slum clearance subplot from the screenwriter Tony Kushner — who has updated the original stage book from 1957 by Arthur Laurents — that feels vaguely anticorporate but eventually disappears, although not before delivering to the film a gift of piquant symbolism.
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Here Jet Song finishes, triumphantly, on a mountain of rubble from a felled apartment block that’s making way for the construction of the Lincoln Center. The sight of these young rapscallions, with their macho posturing and their bullish lyrics (“We’re gonna beat every last buggin’ gang on the whole buggin’ street!”), gyrating hopelessly on a giant pile of detritus, is beyond tragic and speaks of a slick corporate world that’s swiftly leaving their kind behind.
Kushner’s other nice additions include a backstory for Maria that speaks of the five years she spent in New York with just her father for company before brother and gang leader Bernardo (David Alvarez) arrived. It’s dramatically trivial but contextually rich.
The most significant alteration, however, is the replacement of storeowner Doc with the character of his wife, Valentina, played by the original movie Anita, Rita Moreno. She is given a substantial role that she handles with aplomb, becoming a mentor for Tony, a protector for Anita and a symbol of hope for the community. When she sings Somewhere near the end, instead of Tony and Maria, it’s suddenly transformed from a tragic love song to a plea for racial harmony.
The downside? Gee, Officer Krupke is oddly lacklustre this time and is devoid of the manic energy that made the 1961 version so memorable — Mike Faist’s Riff is cool, idiosyncratic and naturalistic, but he can’t quite reach Russ Tamblyn’s crazy-eyed intensity. Otherwise and elsewhere, the film is perhaps too reverential, too perfect. Steven Spielberg has indeed shown us just how to remake one of the great movie musicals. But I’m not sure if, at any point throughout this peerless cinematic homage, he has managed to demonstrate why.
12A, 156min. In cinemas
