Barrett Brief Movie Review – West Side Extended Remix Story

Barrett Brief Movie Review – West Side Extended Remix Story

Summary: An adaptation of the 1957 musical, West Side Story explores forbidden love and the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Musical 

Movie musicals. They are the niche of niche movies. It is impossible to capture the energy and experience of live theater in a film. Yet time and time the lure of Hollywood money leads to these films being made, with the same poor results every time. Strange that two musicals come out this year set in New York City (In The Heights) and the often spoken of remake of West Side Story. Why now? Because Steven Spielberg decided to “not remake” the IP, but instead focus not the Puerto Rican “experience” (I.E. – white people be racist). Despite some very good performances and well choreographed routines and beautiful shots, West Side Story cannot escape the confines of the medium and you feel the runtime. 

In order to get the best review for you, I consulted and expert on musicals, Mrs. Brief, who joined me watching the film. 

When A Remake Is Not A Remake

Spielberg states that “I would never have remade West Side Story had there never been a stage play”. Which is strange because in the original ’57 musical equal time was given to both the Jet’s (Polish immigrants) and the Sharks (Puerto Rican). Not so much in Spielbergs version. The first thing you see is the Jets terrorizing the Puerto Rican neighborhood. Explain it all you want, but the film clearly cast the Jet’s as poor, xenophobic ingrates (I mean they were one Trump hat away from sayin “Make New York Great Again!”). This is not “white victimhood”, this is just bad story telling. The Jet’s are not completely innocent, but neither are the Sharks. In this rush to focus on one group, the other group has to be A) marginalized B) Demonized, or both. Spielberg choose the latter. Now of course our excuse for a modern day media will fall over themselves praising this decision, but it’s the easy one to make. The real challenges would have been giving both sides, with their positives and negatives, at least some development. This is another problem with trying to adapt a musical to screen, things will be lost. A lot is being made of the use of Spanish without subtitles. I didn’t mind the use of Spanish without subtitles (Living in Texas, it’s baked in). Also, don’t discount the joy Hollywood has in seeing two deeply Catholic communities (Polish & Puerto Rican) beating up on each other. 

 The Cast

The cast is very well chosen. The standout is 18 year old Rachel Zegler (Maria). In first film she handles the role well and her voice is strong, clear and beautiful. Ansel Elgort (Tony) does a fine job hitting the beats and as Mrs. Brief noted, the chemistry between the two leads was clearly there. Ariana DeBose (Anita) is also a standout as well delivering a fiery performance. I would venture to say that Zegler and DeBose will sweep award season. David Alvarez (Bernardo) plays well with DeBose. Rita Moreno returns as Valentina and adds some much need gravitas to the film. The rest of the cast is talented and one can see that the time was taken to find the right people for these roles. 

Plot & Pacing

West Side Story is an American Romeo & Juliet so to quote Mrs. Brief “The plot and terrible and you rely on good performances and dance numbers”. 

This movie is 2 hours and 36 minutes long. I’m sorry but it didn’t need to be. You could have cut out 36 minutes of this film and still hit all the musical numbers and plot points. Being Spielberg’s first musical, you can see that he has too much reverence for the entire story. That doesn’t work here. The film does drag at points as we are going through every little detail. This works in a musical, not in a movie. 

Technical notes

This film is beautiful. The color palette is there and there are shot that you can see are ripped straight from the stage. The $100 million budget is put to use and if you subscribe to the “every frame is a painting” view of film – then this is a film for you. 

The choreography is spot on, credit the actors and directors involved.

Overall

Despite good performances, well choreographed routines and beautiful shots, West Side Story suffers from being confined by the film medium.

Score:

From Mrs. Brief –  2 1/2 out of 4 Briefcases