West Side Story (2021)

Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.

Review:

Despite that musicals are my favorite genre, my favorite director after Hitchcock is Spielberg, so I expected much from this movie- maybe too much! It was very much like the missing vault classic film that I never seen before, satisfying as a movie in many ways- cinematography, acting, directing- all first rate. HOWEVER West Side Story is a Musical, and there is always a special magical extra layer to them that goes beyond cinema and stage. I always wondered if Hitchcock would be able to direct a musical, and now I know: Spielberg’s version is a gritty, real, beautiful, miraculous rendition but it also strips everything that makes it a musical or magical.

Unlike this years “In The Heights”, which is a superior musical compared to this (except for the awful music of ITH), the script and directing tries to ground and root WWS in a harsh reality but deflates the idea of love instead. We lose the brilliance of Jerome Robbins choreography which is half of the reason to the massive overall success history of WWS. Musicals seem to be better directed by choreographers like Cho (ITH) or Marshall (Chicago). Also the script seemed to add so many extra heavy ideas that were unnecessary, instead of just using the lyrics to understand where the plot needed to come from. In musicals, the music and the dance tell and guide the story- not the heavy handed script and over crafted photography.

I heard older people snoring during the movie and saw younger people just watching tik tok on their phones. So it did lack the luster and spectacle of the old time grande musicals that the old timers loved, as well it lacked the fantastic display of musical clips and dance moves that the younger generation could mimic in attempts to go viral. Lets keep musicals in the hands of experts of the musical, please.

The one number that exceeds and is what this version of WWS wanted to be, was ‘COOL’. That scene really had the art direction, scenery, acting, dancing, music, camera, plot, props, direction, script, everything PERFECT and MAGICAL. And some of the shots of this movie in general are just breathtaking, however I never broke out a single tear which happens to me at almost every musical (including the awful Dear Evan Hansen). This movie is a great exercise in how to make a great film into a boring musical.