West Side Story: Film Review

Cast: Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, Mike Faist, Rita Moreno

Director: Steven Spielberg

It may be lauded as a possible Oscar contender, and may already be a critical darling in the US, but the latest version of 1961's West Side Story feels in truth more like the staging of a musical than a musical itself.

Baby Driver's Ansel Elgort stars as Tony, the fresh-out-of-jail kid who's returned to his crumbling neighbourhood in New York's Upper West Side. With buildings being torn down for new dwellings and an influx of Puerto Rican immigration, the neighbourhood is on edge, schisms further antagonised by gang tensions between the Jets and the Sharks (Puerto Rican).

Determined to stay away from the fight for fear of risking his parole, Tony falls for Puerto Rican Maria (Zegler, in a debut role) at first sight at a dance. But news of their relationship further threatens to split the communities farther.

It's not that West Side Story is a bad film. It's just that it feels like it's technically marvellous rather than emotionally engaging.

There seems to be scant chemistry between Zegler and Elgort to suggest a love-at-first-sight story (despite Zegler trying) and it feels like that's a crucial component of what should matter here. 

But the script takes some elements and treats them lightly, when more weight and verisimilitude would have given them more heft. An attempted rape and a fight sequence feel light and flightly, stuck between straddling a need for more universal appeal and the desire to inject the film with some gravity.

Consequently, the emotional heft is left wanting and with a weighty 155 minutes run time, the film's stuck with its narrative choices, and trying desperately to engage an audience at the end.

Conversely, there are moments when Steven Spielberg's West Side Story soars.

With his eye for a great shot, Spielberg captures plenty of the colour on display during vibrant dance sequences. Tony and Maria's first dalliance at the dance is beautifully choreographed, with dancers swirling all around them, sashaying and twirling until only the two of them are brought sharply into focus.

Equally, a shot of Elgort walking through a puddle with lights above stuns - simply because once Elgort is stood centrally the split lights look like they're spinning around him. There's no denying Spielberg and his cinematographer Janusz Kamiński have an eye for what's tryly stunning on screen.

Of the songs, it's really only America which stands out, bathed as it is in vibrant urgency as it skips through the Upper West Side's streets, its toe-tapping medley losing none of its appeal decades on.

This is perhaps where West Side Story skips a few beats in its transition to the big screen.

Themes such as violence and racism are inherently glossed over and underplayed for seeming romanticism and escapism. It's not that West Side Story should be a heavily daubed musical of verite and grit, more than the script's foibles are enhanced by weaker elements.

It's not a disaster all around, and is likely to win awards in 2022, but this West Side Story may lack the passion of an emotionally charged musical and feels more like a technically wondrous piece of cinema instead.