Steven Spielberg has been saying he wants to make a musical since before I was born - and it's one thing to pick a "big" project for when that chance finally comes, but taking a swing at remaking arguably "the" great American musical? How do you tackle that?
Evidently, by joining the John Carpenter's The Thing Club of "remakes that are better than the original."
There are "big boots to fill," and then there's "Arthur Laurent's retelling of Romeo & Juliet, the film adaptation of which put Stephen Sondheim on the map." Spielberg's version (with screenplay by Tony Kushner of Lincoln & Munich) plants a flag from the very first shot, sweeping close in to the rubble of old New York as neighborhoods are being bulldozed to put in swanky new housing and driving hoodlums off their turf to tragic result. The Jets aren't just a street gang of teenagers hanging in a playground, they're crawling out of the wreckage on the literal edge of No Man's Land. The new West Side Story is every bit as fanciful and "unrealistic" as, well as a Hollywood melodrama where people break into complex song and dance numbers and the entire narrative takes place over the span of two days, but it has darker shadows and sharper edges that accent every triumph and tragedy.
Speaking of said musical numbers, Spielberg has been choreographing the spectacle of bodies in motion to music for most of his career, and he could have delivered memorable set pieces in a walk. However, his evident passion for the form is on full display from minute one. Spielberg has always had a "classical" style of framing his shots, but also an almost instinctive knowledge of placing and moving the camera to both compliment his actors' movements and accentuate the visual storytelling of the scene. His longtime collaborator Janusz Kaminski feels equally unleashed, pumping up his cinematography's acid washed magical realism through the roof at times to emulate scenes from the original when focus would lock in on characters or the lights would dim to isolate them from the crowd.
Spielberg's also given a wealth of opportunities to tinker with the smaller gears of the piece, and takes full advantage to flesh out a few character details that didn't make the original film as well as move a couple of pieces around. There's some clever foreshadowing and character work in his version of "Gee, Officer Krupke" and this film's re-contextualization of "Cool" now feels absolutely integral to the narrative.
What's equally impressive is that the film wrangled a cast that's every bit as game to hit every ball over the fence. Mike Faist's Riff has a desperate hunger to go with his swagger, and David Alvarez is heartbreakingly good as Shark leader Bernardo. And while you couldn't ask for a more genuine pair of young lovers than Ansel Elgort (channeling more than a little of his Baby Driver energy) and Rachel Zegler as Tony and Maria, it's Mario DeBose as Anita who walks away with the film just as assuredly as Rita Moreno did 60 years ago. Playing big enough for the dance floor and small enough for the kitchen table takes chops as it is, but DeBose shows every crack in Anita's armor just small enough for the audience - and no one else - to see, and there are entire scenes where she practically carries the film all on her own.
I don't know that remakes have to justify their existence, per say - but when calling a shot like this, it sure helps to know what you're bringing to the table. Much like Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet, this is a deliberate "period piece" re-adaptation of a well-known work that is unmistakably The Work, while also using modern talent, technology, and sensibility to enrich already potent theme and context. The film even uses Rita Moreno's casting as Anita (in the Friar Lawrence/Doc role) to underline the cyclical nature of the story its telling: the more "things change," the more America stays the same - and our children are the ones who suffer for it.
The best compliment that I can pay to Spielberg's remake is that I never felt like I needed another version of West Side Story until I saw this film. Now I can't stop thinking about when I can see it again.
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