west side story movie reviews

West Side Story

Steven Spielberg ’s eloquent and graceful “West Side Story” opens with the familiar image of the Jets prowling across New York City. They toss paint cans to one another, gathering in larger numbers as they slink and slide through the streets. Occasionally, their strides break into a dance move—a spin or a slide across the pavement—always in unison. It’s almost as if they can’t help it, as if they need to express themselves through movement. Much of “West Side Story” is about that need, that sense of something under the surface that just has to escape—restlessness, passion, anger, displacement—the sense that “something’s coming” that so many people feel when they’re young. Immediately, one can feel the craftsmanship of this restaging of the classic Broadway smash. The camera doesn’t just capture action on a set—it glides with the performers, and we glide along with them. The editing avoids the choppy rhythms of so many recent musicals, allowing viewers to feel motion and connection. We are instantly hooked and will be for the next 2.5 hours.

Fans of the original stage production and beloved film will argue over the need for a 2021 version of “West Side Story,” although restaging a classic play is an annual event in major theaters around the world. For some reason, remakes in film are more often seen as attempts to supplant an original whereas theater goers are accustomed to the process of new voices interpreting classic texts. The new voices here are those of absolute geniuses, including Spielberg, writer Tony Kushner ( Angels in America ), cinematographer Janusz Kaminski , choreographer Justin Peck , and a stunning ensemble of new voices and talented veterans. Kushner and Spielberg have stayed loyal to the play and original film while also making notable changes in a way that makes it fresh and vibrant. And they have staged their production in a way that’s often mesmerizing. One misguided casting decision holds it back from absolute greatness but there are so many breathtaking, perfect sequences in this “West Side Story” that I suspect it will do what the original did for a lot of people, including this critic who was raised on movie musicals—make them a fan of the entire genre.

The opening sequence sets up the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks. The former group of tough-talking New Yawkers is led by Riff ( Mike Faist , giving one of several star-making performances in the film), who is tired of the Sharks taking the city that he thinks belongs to him. Leading the Puerto Rican Sharks is Bernardo ( David Alvarez ), a boxer who isn’t about to give an inch to anyone and who warns his sister Maria ( Rachel Zegler ) to never even look at a “gringo.” That doesn’t last long. Maria, Bernardo, and his partner Anita ( Ariana DeBose ) go to a dance that night where Maria catches the eye of Tony ( Ansel Elgort ), a former Jet who is trying to go straight. Just released from prison after nearly killing a guy, Tony lives in the basement of the store in which he works, watched over by a mother figure named Valentina (a transcendent Rita Moreno , who won an Oscar for the first film and could do so again).

Of course, anyone even vaguely familiar with the Shakespeare-inspired original knows that this New York Romeo falls hard for his Puerto Rican Juliet. And yet Spielberg and Kushner find new notes to hit in a musical that many know by heart. The changes are not superficial but feel like elements that are being pulled out of the original in a way that 2021 audiences will see differently than those did in 1961, including enriching the immigrant narrative at the center of this piece. Characters like Maria, Bernardo, and Anita have a rich back story that the original never allowed, and Spielberg also allows his historian side to influence the take, opening the film with a shot of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts under construction—a job that historically pushed immigrant communities out of that part of the city. So much of “West Side Story” takes place against a backdrop of crumbling facades or under the shadow of a wrecking ball. It’s a glorious symbol of not only a time when the city and country were changing but how it reflects the incomplete nature of these young people looking for their lives to be built.

In terms of performance, “West Side Story” make instant stars of at least three people: Mike Faist, Ariana DeBose, and Rachel Zegler. Of course, theatre fans don’t need an introduction to DeBose, a Tony nominee who was in the original production of Hamilton . As anyone who knows the original can tell you, DeBose gets the showstopper in “ America ,” and it is one of the cinematic highlights of the year. Spielberg and Kushner pull the number down from the rooftops, sending Anita and her friends through the streets, dancing and singing with such passion that you can sense it through the camera. Spielberg and Kaminski’s staging here is stunning, moving so gracefully around the performers in a way that’s never distracting but only designed to make sure you don’t miss a thing. The camerawork incorporates a little too much lens flare but it’s the framing and fluidity that make it exemplary.

Faist and Zegler also find that well of passion that Riff and Maria need. On the other hand, Elgort rarely feels like he’s on the same page. These characters need to be almost jittery with the adrenalin of youth—an uncontrollable feeling that leads them to dance, to love, to fight. Everyone gets that but Elgort. He’s a blank slate in the first half, brought slightly to life by the melodrama but never enough to stop the thoughts of what could have been with a performer who better understood Tony’s desperation. He’s caught between friendship and love, knowing that giving into either could send him back to jail or worse. Elgort never conveys those stakes.

Luckily, everything around him does. Faist finds a remarkable vulnerability in Riff; Zegler makes you believe that love has her feeling pretty; Alvarez nails the over-protective nature of men who go too far; DeBose has arguably the largest range from “America” to the end of Anita’s tragic arc. And then there’s Rita Moreno. When I realized a moment that she was about to have in terms of one of the original songs from the show, I gasped. She grounds the final act of the film in a way that it really needs.

There’s so much beauty in this “West Side Story.” It merges things that have truly shaped pop culture from the graceful precision of Spielberg—who has always had a musical director’s eye in terms of how he choreographs his scenes—to the masterful songwriting of Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein to the brilliant writing of Tony Kushner to the immigrant experience in this country. It grabs you from the very beginning and takes you there. Somehow, someday, somewhere.

Now playing in theaters.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

Ansel Elgort as Tony
Rachel Zegler as Maria
Rita Moreno as Valentina
Ariana DeBose as Anita
David Alvarez as Bernardo
Corey Stoll as Lieutenant Schrank
Brian d’Arcy James as Sergeant Krupke
Josh Andrés Rivera as Chino
Mike Faist as Riff
Ana Isabelle as Rosalia
Paloma Garcia-Lee as Graziella
Maddie Ziegler as Velma
Andrea Burns as Fausta
Ricardo Zayas as Chago

Writer (based on the stage play, book by)

Arthur Laurents

Cinematographer

Janusz Kaminski
Leonard Bernstein
Michael Kahn
Steven Spielberg
Tony Kushner

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‘West Side Story’ Review: In Love and War, 1957 Might Be Tonight

Steven Spielberg rediscovers the breathing, troubling essence of a classic, building a bold and current screen musical with no pretense to perfection.

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A man in a suit and a woman in a white dress hold hands and look at each other.

By A.O. Scott

“West Side Story” sits near the pinnacle of post-World War II American middlebrow culture. First performed on Broadway in 1957 and brought to the screen four years later , it survives as both a time capsule and a reservoir of imperishable songs. What its creators attempted — a swirling fusion of literary sophistication and contemporary social concern, of playfulness and solemnity, of realism and fantasy, of street fighting and ballet — hadn’t quite been attempted before, and hasn’t been matched since.

The idea of harnessing the durable tragedy of “Romeo and Juliet” to the newsy issues of juvenile delinquency and ethnic intolerance must have seemed, to Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim, both audacious and obvious. In the years since, “West Side Story” has proved irresistible — to countless high-school musical theater programs and now to Steven Spielberg, whose film version reaffirms its indelible appeal while making it feel bold, surprising and new.

This isn’t to say that the show has ever been perfect . Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics (and who died just after Thanksgiving at 91 ), frequently disdained his own contributions, including the charming “I Feel Pretty.” The depiction of Puerto Rican and Anglo (or “gringo”) youth gangs has been faulted for sociological imprecision and cultural insensitivity. Shakespeare’s Verona might not translate so easily into the slums of mid-20th-century Manhattan.

But perfection has never been a relevant standard for musicals. The genre has always been a glorious, messy mash-up of aesthetic transcendence and commercial ambition, a grab-bag of styles and sources held together by the energy, ingenuity and sheer chutzpah of scrappy and resourceful artists. This may be especially true at the movies, where the technology of cinema can enhance and also complicate the artistry.

Spielberg’s version, with a screenplay by Tony Kushner that substantially revises Laurents’s book and new choreography by Justin Peck that pays shrewd tribute to Robbins’s genius, can’t be called flawless. The performances are uneven. The swooning romanticism of the central love story doesn’t always align with the roughness of the setting. The images occasionally swerve too bumpily from street-level naturalism to theatrical spectacle. The seams — joining past to present, comedy to tragedy, America to dreamland — sometimes show.

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Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story' will make you believe in movies again

Justin Chang

Ariana DeBose (center) is Anita in West Side Story. 20th Century Studios hide caption

Ariana DeBose (center) is Anita in West Side Story.

A lot of us had our doubts when we heard that Steven Spielberg would be directing a new version of West Side Story , and not just because of Hollywood remake fatigue. In the decades since it first appeared on Broadway in 1957, the Romeo and Juliet -inspired story of two warring New York street gangs has generated more than its share of criticism, especially over the writing and the casting of its Puerto Rican characters. Even the beloved 1961 movie inspires groans now for having cast Natalie Wood in the lead role of María, and for forcing Rita Moreno , the only Puerto Rican in the cast, to wear dark brown makeup as Anita.

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Rita moreno on 'west side story' and becoming the role model she needed.

Sixty years later, Moreno is an executive producer on Spielberg's West Side Story . She also gives a poignant performance in the new role of Valentina, the widow of Doc, the drugstore owner. By her presence, Moreno teaches us how to approach this movie, as both an affectionate tribute and a gentle corrective.

Spielberg and his regular screenwriter of late, the playwright Tony Kushner , give us a tougher, grimier vision of the Upper West Side in the 1950s. We see the working-class neighborhood of San Juan Hill, home to mostly Black and Latino residents, being demolished to make way for new developments like Lincoln Center. There's a heightened sense of hostility between the Puerto Rican gang known as the Sharks and their white rivals, the Jets, and their rumbles are startlingly violent.

'Fresh Air' remembers Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim (Part 1)

Adding to the realism is the fact that the Sharks are played by actors of Latino descent. They include David Alvarez as Bernardo, the brash leader of the Sharks, and Ariana DeBose as his girlfriend, Anita. Both actors are superb, as is Rachel Zegler, making a fine screen debut as Bernardo's little sister, María.

The story hasn't changed: María falls into an ill-fated romance with Tony, a former member of the Jets, played by Ansel Elgort. Early in the film, the two meet surreptitiously on María's fire escape, singing "Tonight," one of the many classic Leonard Bernstein - Stephen Sondheim songs gloriously revived in the movie.

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The real-life drama behind 'west side story'.

What's remarkable about this and the other numbers is how brilliantly Spielberg directs them. West Side Story is the first musical he's ever made, but it's no surprise that he's a natural at it: Few other American filmmakers have a more instinctive sense of rhythm and visual flow, or more direct access to your emotions.

Spielberg stages the numbers like an old-school Hollywood classicist, with none of the overly jumpy editing that might distract from the dancing. When the Jets and the Sharks meet up at a school dance, their clashing tempers and bodies pull you in with an almost physical force. And when Anita and Bernardo sing "America," their rousing song about the pleasures and perils of assimilation, the scene builds from a domestic squabble to a joyous party in the streets, which Spielberg shoots in a vibrant whirl of color and movement.

The Tony-winning choreographer Justin Peck wrings some clever variations on Jerome Robbins' original dance moves, whether it's the Jets wreaking havoc in a police station house during their big comic-relief number, "Gee, Officer Krupke," or Tony and his friends tossing around a pistol during a tense performance of the song "Cool."

Speaking of Tony's friends: As Riff, the leader of the Jets, Mike Faist gives one of the movie's standout performances. The weak link in the cast is Elgort: He can sing and dance, but there's an emotional flatness to his acting that doesn't quite gel with the much livelier Zegler.

Stephen Sondheim, the Broadway legend, has died at 91

Spielberg can't solve everything that's creaky and dated about West Side Story as a text. But he knows that the show still has something resonant to say about racism and violence in any era, including ours. The reason the movie works so well stems, I think, from a curious paradox: This West Side Story may be grittier and more realistic than the original movie, but it also feels more thrillingly old-fashioned than anything a Hollywood studio has released in ages.

By the end, I wasn't moved so much by Tony and María's sweet, somewhat drippy romance or the fatalistic drama between the Jets and the Sharks. I was moved by Spielberg's conviction, his sheer faith in the transporting power of movies. For two-and-a-half hours, he makes you a believer again.

West Side Story
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Steven Spielberg’s Extraordinary <i>West Side Story</i> Is an Exuberant Modern Fairytale

Steven Spielberg’s Extraordinary West Side Story Is an Exuberant Modern Fairytale

W here does the past meet the present, and who’s in charge of moving the slide rule between the two? In the opening number of Steven Spielberg’s extraordinary version of West Side Story, the white-boy New York City street gang, the Jets—led by Riff, played by Mike Faist, an angry elfin specter turned earthling—steal a bunch of paint cans from a construction site. Their plan is to deface a public mural of the Puerto Rican flag representing their rival gang, the Sharks. In their bomber jackets and ragged T-shirts, they swing their paint cans as they half-run, half-dance through the circa-1957 city streets, already a shambles in the face of urban renewal. In the space between heartbeats, two or three of the boys leap forward from the group, only to fall back again in a minutely timed hydraulic swoon. There might be a technical term for this type of sneaker-ballet glissando, but why name it? Let’s call this arc of movement—designed by choreographer Justin Peck but obviously animated by the cool sweatshirt ghost of the show’s original choreographer, Jerome Robbins—a way of collapsing time. No one needs a West Side Story remake. So how about a West Side Story reborn?

Like many—or at least many people vocal on social media—I was a doubter: I had no idea I needed this West Side Story until I saw it. This, possibly, is the best kind of movie, the stealth achievement that has been hiding in plain sight all along. Spielberg is one of the great filmmakers of our time, but he’s also one of our most affectionate, a designation that might turn out to be more important in the long run. His vision, and his knack for transferring it to the screen, is formidable. And while he sometimes falls prey to sentimentality, there are worse sins in the grand scheme of a career. There is perhaps no one better at working out the technical angles of creating an illusion; even in his failures, he never comes off as a lever-pusher, like Christopher Nolan, or a mischievous bomb-thrower, like Quentin Tarantino. Like his contemporary Martin Scorsese, he’s so old school that he practically is the school.

Read more: ‘We Need To Be in the Room.’ West Side Story ’s Rachel Zegler and Ariana DeBose on Latino Representation in Film

And so his West Side Story —with its glorious Leonard Bernstein woodwinds and bongos, its ruffly “I Feel Pretty” Stephen Sondheim wordplay—comes off not like a re-creation of an older work, but like a work summoned from the memory of a feeling. To the extent that semantics matter, it might be more accurate to call Spielberg’s West Side Story —its screenplay by Tony Kushner, riffing on Arthur Laurents’ original book—a new film interpretation of the 1957 play , rather than a remake of Robert Wise’s 1961 film . There are similarities between the two films, chief among them the presence of Rita Moreno , so dazzling as the 1961 Anita. Here, the character of drug-store sage Doc—a weak point in the movie, with his lecturey howler “You kids! You make the woild doity!”—has been reimagined as Doc’s widow, Valentina, herself proof that a marriage can work when it crosses cultural barriers. Moreno plays the role with tender bravura, as if she knows the value of a second chance.

Yet the differences between the two films are perhaps even more stark, certainly in terms of casting: Natalie Wood , a huge star at the time of the first movie, was cast as Maria, her skin darkened with makeup. (She also couldn’t really sing; her numbers were dubbed by ghost-singer extraordinaire Marni Nixon.) While it has become an international pastime to waggle our fingers scoldingly at the past, the simpler solution is to start fresh with a Maria cast as she should be, as a Latina —Spielberg has chosen newcomer Rachel Zegler, who’s graceful and lovely, guileless in all the right ways but also capable of shifting her pitch to rage and fury when necessary.

Beyond those changes and a few tweaks, the framework of the story remains comfortingly familiar: Set on the Upper West Side in the days before the area became an enclave for rich or comfortably middle-class Zabar’s shoppers, this Romeo and Juliet reworking involves lovers from different backgrounds, members of rival clans who are out for blood. Maria and Tony (Ansel Elgort, moderately appealing and a serviceable dancer) meet at a dance and fall in love instantly. Maria’s brother, Bernardo (David Alvarez), forbids the match—he has a nice Puerto Rican boy, Chino (Josh Andrés Rivera), already picked out for her. Meanwhile, war brews between the Jets (the disgruntled white guys, who see their supremacy dwindling) and Bernardo’s gang, the Sharks (recent, and unwelcome, immigrants from Puerto Rico), with the lovers caught in the crossfire.

There’s a great deal of present-day moral and political resonance to be drawn from this story, and to their credit, Spielberg and Kushner draw just enough: any more would be overkill. (One potent choice Spielberg made was to not add subtitles when characters speak in Spanish. If you don’t know the language, you’re on your own—though the actors’ expressiveness will carry you.) Rather than hammer out clumsy messages of unity—that is, rather obviously, what the show is about in the first place—Spielberg revels in, and expands upon, the great beauty and energy inherent in the story, the music, the dancing. In this show, the romantic leads are almost beside the point. What you really need are great second bananas, and Spielberg’s got ’em. Alvarez’s Bernardo has the right mix of brawn and good sense; there are moments when you see him weighing the wisdom of just trying to talk sense into the headstrong Jets, before he realizes it’s impossible and gives up. Alvarez is also a marvelous dancer, muscular yet fleet, a perfect match for Ariana DeBose , as his girlfriend, Anita: in her fiery circle skirts, a cap of winsome curls setting off her sly, expressive features, she looks as if she could jolt the idiots around her out of their macho rut with just the snap of her fingers. If that were humanly possible, she’d be the person to do it.

And Faist, who has appeared in Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway, makes a wily and complex Riff. He’s a street kid with the hustle melted right into his bones—but there’s something latently sweet about him, too, as if his capacity for joy had been burned away by one disappointment too many. And his dancing has a caffeinated, angular beauty; Riff is one of those kids who feels most alive when he’s moving—no wonder he can’t stop.

The big gang showdown, gorgeously choreographed and set in a cavernous, glowing road-salt storage facility, is operatic in its intensity, a jagged symphony of testosterone and confusion that’s thrilling until it makes you heartsick. The action is at times shot from overhead, as if the camera’s eye were God’s own, gazing in dismay upon the whole snow-and-blood mess of humanity. This sequence is technically and emotionally complex, but Spielberg makes sure none of the seams show. No one should be asking why Spielberg wanted to make a musical . The question is, why did he wait so long? He showed his aptitude for it in sequences like the peripatetic swing-dance number from 1941, and the glittery Busby Berkeley-style opener of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom . At last, he has a large-scale musical of his own.

On top of it all, West Side Story —shot by Spielberg regular Janusz Kaminski—is possibly the most gorgeous-looking film of the year. There are eight million lens flares in the naked city, and a good half of them are in West Side Story. These strange flashes of light—sometimes appearing as stars, other times as flat UFO-style invaders—show up indoors and out, in dance sequences and intimate love scenes. Are these luminous slashes un-erased mistakes, or are they purely intentional? There’s no need to know, or to care. Oddly enchanting and otherworldly, their presence marks this West Side Story as a modern fairytale, a work of grave beauty set in a time, and in a New York, long gone. This is movie as mirage. You won’t believe it until you see it, and maybe not even then.

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Steven spielberg’s ‘west side story’: film review.

The 1957 musical masterwork is sumptuously reimagined, with Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler as the young lovers torn apart by a climate of hate and intolerance.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Ariana DeBose as Anita in 20th Century Studios’ WEST SIDE STORY.

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Distributor: Disney Production companies: 20th Century Studios, The Walt Disney Company Cast: Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, Mike Faist, Brian d’Arcy James, Corey Stoll, Josh Andrés Rivera, Rita Moreno, Iris Menas Director: Steven Spielberg Screenwriter: Tony Kushner, based on the stage play conceived, directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, with book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim Producers: Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Kevin McCollum Executive producers: Rita Moreno, Daniel Lupi, Adam Somner, Tony Kushner Director of photography: Janusz Kaminski Production designer: Adam Stockhausen Costume designer: Paul Tazewell Editors: Michael Kahn, Sarah Broshar Choreographer: Justin Peck; original choreography Jerome Robbins Casting: Cindy Tolan

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West Side Story review: Steven Spielberg pulls off the near-impossible in glowing remake

Breeze it, buzz it, easy does it.

In a world where Batman seems to reboot biannually and even Space Jam gets a sequel , it helps to know that some things are still sacred. Like West Side Story , the 1957 stage musical whose definitive 1961 movie version has remained rightfully untouched for 60 years ( at least on screen ). The EGOT slurry of names brave enough to take it on in 2021 — Steven Spielberg directs, Tony Kushner penned the script, and Tony winner Justin Peck has tweaked the original Jerome Robbins choreography — may not be a match for the 20th-century icons who created it, but who is? More importantly, they're wise enough to stay largely faithful to Arthur Laurents' book, Leonard Bernstein's music, and Stephen Sondheim's sublime lyrics, with just a few well-gauged updates.

They also make it look great: West Side (in theaters Dec. 10) opens on a gleaming 1950s New York City, god's-eye cameras swooping and gliding over the vast construction site that will soon become Lincoln Center. Until then, its alleys and empty lots belong to the world's premier juvenile delinquents; the Sharks are Puerto Rican, the Jets mostly Polish and Irish, and these few square blocks are the nexus of everything they care about. Never mind that change is coming, along with the new buildings — the Jets might be "the last of the can't-make-it Caucasians" that gentrification is about to erase, as a gruff detective played by Corey Stoll is happy to inform them, but until then, they'll fight with fists and knives to defend their territory from the brown-skinned interlopers they don't consider fellow citizens, no matter what geography books say.

The Sharks have their leader, a pugnacious part-time boxer named Bernardo (David Alvarez), and the Jets have Riff (Mike Faist), but the latter's true north star is Tony ( Ansel Elgort ), recently released from prison for assault and eager to turn over a newer, gentler leaf. He's committed to being a model parolee, stocking the shelves for widowed drug-store owner Valentina by day (the undimmable Rita Moreno , a joyful holdover from the original cast), and keeping a bedroll in her basement. If only Riff didn't work so hard to lure Tony to the local dance, and if only his eyes didn't lock with Bernardo's baby sister Maria ( Rachel Zegler ) across a crowded gymnasium the moment he walked in.

Their connection is immediate and immediately trouble; a stolen kiss under the bleachers is enough to make Bernardo demand a rumble and set the plot machinery in motion. Anyone who's ever hummed "Gee, Officer Krupke" and "I Feel Pretty" — the soundtrack, astoundingly, is still the longest-running no. 1 album of all time — or read a little bit of Shakespeare will know the gist of what comes next. What's surprising is how well Spielberg and Kushner massage the text to make it fresh without losing essential fidelity to the story: A trans character (Iris Menas) comes more explicitly into focus, and the teenage hooligans, beneath their ducktailed hair and rolled cuffs, pulse with a modernity that feels urgent and real. It's still the '50s, but sex and danger are more than implied here, and so are the realities of race and class.

A substantial chunk of the dialogue is also delivered in Spanish without subtitles or translation, which some viewers will undoubtedly make noise about. But it sits right with the update; if the Babel tower that Manhattan is built on isn't all-American, what is? What still feels classic is the setting — New York as a neighborly place of steam grates, corner bodegas, and laundry lines strung between tenements — and the cast. Zegler and Elgort don't really dance, but their young lovers are the luminous center of the story, with voices like bells and faces so pretty it almost hurts to look at them directly. (Though Spielberg does repeatedly, in swooning closeups and extravagantly wide-scoped musical numbers.)

The best acting often happens off to the side: The wiry, fine-boned Faist, best known for his Tony-nominated turn on Broadway in Dear Evan Hansen , is a standout, and so is Hamilton 's Ariana DeBose, who has the unenviable task of appearing in the role Moreno originated on-screen and famously won an Oscar for. Her Anita is a pure dopamine rush on the dance floor and a small revelation off of it, dimensional and fiercely tender beneath her brash exterior. (When she and Moreno share a brief late scene, they're both electric.) Whether any of those factors alone justify a remake, it's hard to say; necessity is in the eye of the beholder, or maybe just the demographic that will be coming to all of this new. No matter how poignant or pointedly reworked, West Side Story is still high Hollywood fantasy: Where else outside of a sound stage can turf wars be resolved with a warbled melody and a kick-ball-change? But it feels like a rare achievement to even attempt to scale the unscalable and still, after more than half a century, be able to make it sing. Grade: A–

West Side Story

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. 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. 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.

Steven Spielberg
Tony Kushner
Arthur Laurents
Ansel Elgort
Rachel Zegler
Ariana DeBose
807 User reviews
332 Critic reviews
85 Metascore
74 wins & 300 nominations total

Top cast 99+

Officer Krupke

Lieutenant Schrank

(as Josh Andrés Rivera)

(as David Avilés Morales)

(as Ricardo A. Zayas)
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Rita Moreno Breaks Down 6 of Her Iconic Roles

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Trivia The songs "One Hand, One Heart" and "A Boy Like That/I Have a Love" were performed live on set by Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler & Ariana DeBose and Zegler respectively. Sections of "Maria" were also sung live on set by Elgort, as per his request. All other songs were filmed to the more traditional playback technique. "Somewhere" was also sung live on set by Rita Moreno.
Goofs The 9th (Columbus) Ave elevated train tracks in the Upper West Side were removed after their closure in 1940.

Tony : All my life, it's like I'm always just about to fall off the edge of the world's tallest building. I stopped falling the second I saw you.

Crazy credits The end credits feature a dedication to Steven Spielberg 's father Arnold Spielberg with a simple "For Dad".
Connections Alternate-language version of West Side Story (1961)
Soundtracks Prologue Music by Leonard Bernstein

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Dec 19, 2021
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Dance is a very important element in "West Side Story," but no choreographer is listed in the credits. Will Jerome Robbins' groundbreaking original choreography be recreated?
The original release date was in December 2020. Is it true it will now be released December 2021?
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December 10, 2021 (United States)
United States
United Kingdom
20th Century Studios (United States)
Amblin (United States)
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Paterson, New Jersey, USA
20th Century Studios
Amblin Entertainment
Amblin Partners
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$100,000,000 (estimated)
$38,530,322
$10,574,618
Dec 12, 2021
$76,016,171

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Runtime 2 hours 36 minutes
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Dolby Digital
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Review: ‘West Side Story’ is Steven Spielberg’s most exhilarating movie in years

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At the beginning of Steven Spielberg’s brilliantly directed “West Side Story,” the Jets whistle, snap their fingers and pirouette around New York, a city that looms and sprawls but is still nowhere big enough to contain their brash, combative energy. So far, so familiar. But anyone who grew up on Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ 1961 Oscar-winning smash — and who has memorized every chord of Leonard Bernstein’s music, every step of Robbins’ choreography and every lyric composed by (sob) the late, great Stephen Sondheim — will immediately spot some differences. (And I don’t just mean the regrettable absence of the word “Fox” from the 20th Century Studios logo.)

Rather than opening with lofty aerial views of Manhattan, Spielberg’s movie starts off lower to the ground, snaking its way through the brick-strewn rubble of a San Juan Hill tenement that’s been demolished to make way for Lincoln Center. A patina of 1950s social realism has long been one of this musical’s selling points, and it gets an extra layer of grit here in the barbed wire and twisted metal of Adam Stockhausen’s production design, plus the exuberant athleticism of the cinematography (by Spielberg’s longtime lens man, Janusz Kaminski). Once the dancing begins, the camera doesn’t seem to be recording so much as propelling the performers’ movements, matching and even amplifying their mix of balletic grace and street-gang aggression.

And such aggression! Led by Riff (Mike Faist, spectacular in his wiry physicality and wise-guy attitude), the Jets swiftly desecrate a local mural of the Puerto Rican flag, provoking a startlingly brutal clash with their archrivals, the Sharks. The racial divisions feel especially fierce, not just because of the slurs flying back and forth but because, in contrast with the earlier film, the Sharks are actually played by Latino actors (none more arresting than David Alvarez as their swaggering leader, Bernardo). I don’t mean to single out this casting as some sort of accomplishment: It’s 2021, for heaven’s sake. But it’s also, of course, the ’50s. And the obvious care taken by Spielberg and his screenwriter, Tony Kushner — here wringing an entirely new script from Arthur Laurents’ original book — speaks to the cultural firestorms that “West Side Story” seems to ignite with each new iteration (including Ivo Van Hove’s very different, divisive 2020 Broadway revival ).

Covering the issues, politics, culture and lifestyle of the Latino community in L.A., California and beyond.

As with most updates of beloved material, the mere fact of this movie’s existence has provoked its fair share of indignation. Some of the criticism has focused on Hollywood’s remake addiction, but more of it has to do with the troubling, complicated legacy of “West Side Story” itself, whose mashup of broad archetypes (ah, angry, impetuous youth!) and reductive ethnic stereotypes has long been a source of contention. There may be no greater emblem of the show’s inextricable triumphs and failures than Rita Moreno’s 1961 performance as Anita, a role for which she was forced to wear brown makeup — a singular degradation for the lone Puerto Rican member of the cast — and for which she won a history-making Academy Award for supporting actress.

Rita Moreno stands looking out an open window.

Moreno, now 89, is an executive producer on the new movie and also plays the crucial role of Valentina, standing in for the original’s soda-shop owner, Doc. In a role shrewdly recast as Puerto Rican, she helps counterbalance some of the white authority figures — including Brian d’Arcy James as the beleaguered Officer Krupke and Corey Stoll as his smug superior, Lt. Schrank — whose break-it-up attitude inevitably skews in favor of the white Jets. Valentina’s tough, affectionate guidance of our romantic hero, Tony (Ansel Elgort), adds a balancing note of cross-cultural friendship to the movie’s seething racial cauldron. And Moreno’s presence, which includes a sweetly quavering performance of “Somewhere,” functions as a poignant good-luck charm in a movie that positions itself as both glorious throwback and gentle corrective.

Some of the most crucial and engaging reparative work is done in the apartment where Bernardo bickers with his younger sister, María (outstanding newcomer Rachel Zegler), and his girlfriend, Anita (Ariana DeBose), in a free-flowing mix of English and deliberately unsubtitled Spanish. The point is to assert not only the ubiquity of Spanish as an American language but also to heighten the timeless, universal qualities of the story; Bernardo’s smothering protectiveness, María’s spirited defiance and Anita’s street-wise exasperation require no translation, especially since Alvarez, Zegler and especially DeBose give such vibrant, emotionally immediate performances.

Spielberg’s filmmaking, of course, is another language intuitive enough for any moviegoer to understand. It may be worth noting that America’s most popular director has never before directed an entry in what was once America’s most popular film genre, but that fact almost pales into insignificance given his instinctive sense of visual rhythm, proportion and kinetic flow, his gift for orchestrating moments that trigger near-Pavlovian bursts of feeling. When the Sharks and Jets converge at a school gym for a little mambo-a-mambo, the dazzling swirls of color (supplied in part by Paul Tazewell’s costumes) and the unifying sweep of the camera produce a special kind of rapture. The collision of bodies — and of tempers, cultures, identities — yanks you into the moment with an almost physical force.

Women in colorful dresses dance on a New York street corner.

That dance serves as the backdrop for the first glimmers of romance and early rumors of a rumble. Enter Riff’s best friend, Tony, the peace-loving Romeo who locks eyes with María’s fresh-faced Juliet, cementing this movie’s ill-fated love story and setting its climactic waves of violence in motion. Elgort can move gracefully through the frame, as he demonstrated in “Baby Driver,” and he croons his way pleasantly if not too forcefully through Tony’s big early numbers like “Something’s Coming” and “María.” Still, there’s often a woodenness to the actor’s expressions, an excess of soft-eyed brooding, that doesn’t fully overcome Tony’s fundamental drippiness as a character. When Anita urges María to “forget that boy and find another,” you may find yourself nodding in agreement.

The superb Zegler, by contrast, brings a quality of luminous intelligence even to María’s wide-eyed naiveté; her clear-as-a-bell singing and deft timing serve her well amid the ebullient comedy of “I Feel Pretty,” and also amid the soaring passions of “Tonight,” in which a fire escape becomes Tony and María’s romantic refuge. That scene has long been one of “West Side Story’s” emotional (and literal) high points, and Spielberg’s staging and blocking — aided here, as ever, by Justin Peck’s sterling choreography — are a particular model of how dynamic camera movement, strategic closeups and physically nimble performers can breathe fresh life into even the oldest chestnut.

Directing a musical — and a version of a musical he’s loved since childhood — has shaken something loose in Spielberg. Why “West Side Story,” why now? To watch this movie is to see and hear the answer. With every number you can feel him playfully challenging Wise and Robbins’ interpretation and also, crucially, challenging himself, whether he’s having Tony, Riff and their friends play an acrobatic game of keep-away with a gun during the tense, disquieting “Cool” or staging the riotous comic relief of “Gee, Officer Krupke!” in a police department station house, all the better for the Jets to thumb their noses at authority. (Among the other young actors distinguishing themselves here are Josh Andrés Rivera as María’s jilted boyfriend, Chino, and Iris Menas as the Jets’ tagalong-turned-informant, Anybodys.)

Three young men leap balletically on a New York street as other men watch.

It reaches an apotheosis with “America,” in which Anita and Bernardo spar with quick-witted ingenuity over the joys and perils of assimilation — a journey that rightly progresses from a domestic squabble to a traffic-stopping dance of almost kaleidoscopic beauty. Therein lies the spry paradox of this “West Side Story,” which knows that in sensitive enough hands, close-to-the-bone realism and bright-hued formalism can be flip sides of the same stylistic coin. Spielberg’s movie may be rougher, grittier, more lived-in and, in terms of cultural representation, more truthful than its 1961 cinematic incarnation. But it is also more unabashedly classical, more radiantly stylized, than just about anything a major American studio has released in years.

That includes some of Spielberg’s own movies. Over the past decade or more he has undertaken a doggedly optimistic search for what you might call the soul of America — a quest that has reliably led him into the past, into the Watergate-era newsrooms of “The Post” and the Civil War-era congressional chambers of “Lincoln” (another Kushner-Spielberg collaboration). “West Side Story” belongs more in their company than you might think; it isn’t historical drama, but there’s no overlooking its place in history, or its alternately confusing and clarifying vision of how divisions of age, race and gender play out in the body politic. Spielberg, attentive as he is to the quality of the singing and dancing, operates from the conviction that this Broadway-to-Hollywood warhorse still has something important to say.

And conviction — a commitment that can’t be faked, and a quality by which every musical lives or dies — is what underpins, energizes and ultimately justifies this “West Side Story.” By the end, I was less moved by Tony and María’s tragic love story, which veers expectedly between sweetness and creakiness, than I was by Spielberg’s sheer faith in the transporting power of movies. He believes there’s still a place for them, and for us.

‘West Side Story’

Rating: PG-13, for some strong violence, thematic content, suggestive material and brief smoking Running time: 2 hours, 36 minutes Playing: Starts Dec. 10 in general release

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‘West Side Story’ Review: Steven Spielberg Gives the Musical Classic a Gritty, Rousing Upgrade

The director makes the 1957 musical his own and stays reverently true to what generations have loved about it. But he can't solve its last-act problems.

By Owen Gleiberman

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Steven Spielberg ’s “ West Side Story ” has a brash effervescence. You can feel the joy he got out of making it, and the kick is infectious. Directing his first musical, Spielberg moves into the big roomy space of a Broadway-meets-Hollywood classic, rearranges the furniture (the film’s screenwriter, Tony Kushner, has spiced up the dialogue and tossed out the most cringe-worthy knickknacks), and gives it all a fresh coat of desaturated, bombed-out-city-block, gritty-as-reality paint. He makes it his own. At the same time, Spielberg stays reverently true to what generations have loved about “West Side Story”: the swoon factor, the yearning beauty of those songs, the hypnotic jackknife ballet of ’50s delinquents dancing out their aggression on the New York streets. There are scenes in Spielberg’s version that will melt you, scenes that will make your pulse race, and scenes where you simply sit back and revel in the big-spirited grandeur of it all.

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The setting is the Upper West Side in 1957, something the film lets us know with a wink that nods to how Spielberg and Kushner are going to tinker with the material. Robert Wise’s 1961 screen version opened with that God’s-eye panoramic sweep of Manhattan, but Spielberg’s opens with a panorama of rubble, the camera swooping over what looks like a war zone, which turns out to be the wrecking-ball “slum clearance” that will make way for the construction of Lincoln Center. The turf war between the film’s white and Puerto Rican teenage gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, now has a bigger-picture backdrop. Both are being crushed by gentrification — which is to say, part of their tragic folly is they never realize they’re in the same boat.

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The Jets start off slathering paint on the mural of a Puerto Rican flag. As the boys move and groove to their inner thug, singing “Jet Song” (“When you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way…” ), Justin Peck’s choreography plays off the hypnotic, limb-thrusting, rhythm-of-the-city athleticism of Jerome Robbins’ original dances, and Spielberg, working with his dynamic cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, has the camera moves to match. We seem to be gliding through the streets right along with the Jets, channeling their reckless exhilaration, and the ’50s-punk acting has been liberated so that the snarls and struts aren’t trapped in that bubble of old-movie corniness. (The 1961 “West Side Story” felt dated…in 1961.) As Riff, the leader of the Jets, Mike Faist has a lean sociopathic squint, and David Alvarez plays Bernardo, leader of the Sharks, with a mean swagger of self-righteousness. Bernardo is now a boxer (fighting is what gets him high), and his problem is that he has never embraced his life in America. The racial antagonism he faces each day has singed his soul, and Alvarez infuses the character with a dark-side-of-rock-star bravado.

Of course, at the center of “West Side Story” is something — maybe I should say “Somewhere” — softer and more tenderly lyrical. And Spielberg has done an ace job of casting his two romantic leads. Before now, I’ve never been a fan of Ansel Elgort . One’s first thought about him may be that he’s Ashton Kutcher without irony — and that you miss the irony. But in “West Side Story,” Elgort, with lips like Brando’s, has a brooding heart and personality that pop, and he’s a wonderfully expressive crooner. Tony, updated by Kushner’s script, has now spent a year in prison for nearly punching someone to death, and Elgort, speaking in understated street vowels, strikes just the right balance of sweetness and danger. At the high-school dance, which Spielberg stages with a hip-twirling electricity that rivals the big school dance number in “Grease” (yes, that’s a compliment), Tony has his first glimpse of Maria ( Rachel Zegler ), the girl who will burn down what’s left of his gang loyalty, and she has her first glimpse of him, and…well, it could all spearhead a revival of love at first sight. Singing “Maria,” his voice soaring into the upper register, Tony is transported, and so are we.

In the Oscar-winning 1961 film version, adapted from the 1957 Broadway show, Maria was mostly a perky, saintly innocent, but here she gets a spitfire upgrade. The charismatic newcomer Rachel Zegler gives her a touch of fierceness and a boldly chiseled stare of longing. When Maria and Tony sing “Tonight,” the most transcendent song in “West Side Story,” they’re on the fire escape, in vintage Romeo-and-Juliet-of-the-tenement fashion, and Spielberg stages their duet with an intimate choreographed flow, so that the words seem to spin and dance. Their love is an oasis of hope in the concrete jungle. And that’s an emblem of how “West Side Story” now lands in the larger movie world: as a heady nostalgic crowd-pleaser that offers the rare alternative to both blockbuster overkill and indie angst. Can the Oscars possibly say no to it?

That said, I’ve always had a love/gripe relationship with “West Side Story.” It has what may be the greatest set of songs in any American musical, composed by Leonard Bernstein as if he were the magic link between Richard Rodgers and Brian Wilson. The lyrics, by the late Stephen Sondheim, are as peerlessly playful as they are poetic, and the choreography remains a marvel of expressionistic street movement.

For me, though, the original film version goes off the rails during the big rumble. I could never buy that Richard Beymer’s Tony would pick up that switchblade and do what he does. And Natalie Wood’s Maria gets angry at Tony for killing her brother for about five seconds, before she seems to forget all about it. There’s an unconscious racist element to that (quite apart from the regrettable decision to cast Natalie Wood as the Latina Maria), and it gums up the emotional flow. The unintentional subtext seems to be: Bernardo was a Latino hothead, so his death doesn’t even matter to Maria all that much. “West Side Story” may owe its story to Shakespeare, but that doesn’t mean it parses. The last act is less a romantic tragedy than a belabored gang-war scramble that turns into a tidy plea for tolerance.

And those are problems I don’t think the new version completely solves. Given how Kushner has retooled and enriched the script — Tony and Maria’s romance, for instance, isn’t the melodramatic secret it was before — I was surprised to see that the rumble climaxes in the same old hyped-up but unconvincing way. (No, even with Tony having been in prison, I didn’t buy it.) And once that happens, you feel an energy leak out of the movie.

Up till then, “West Side Story” is a parade of delights. Spielberg has staged “America,” with its rousing mock patriotic tongue-twisting lyrics, as a swirling, roving block party of triumphant feminine bluster. “One Hand, One Heart” is now a gorgeous hymn, shot through stained-glass sunlight, and where “Gee, Officer Krupke,” set inside a police station, is the number you’d think would have dated most, it’s actually a witty wonder, since the Jets are using the new furrowed-brow therapeutic “understanding” of delinquency to defend themselves, and the joke is that they know it’s all bunk. Ariana DeBose makes Anita a radiant force of nature, and the legendary Rita Moreno , who played Anita in the original film, is on hand as Valentina, widow of the soda-shop owner Doc. The 89-year-old Moreno, with a no-frills luminosity, steals every scene she’s in, and her rendition of “Somewhere” is a highlight. The whole film feels as contemporary as it needs to, since topicality is baked into its tribal dance of racial animosity. “West Side Story” is a bursting, live-wire pageant of a movie. I just wish it had a final act that soared instead of lumbering to what feels like an overly determined message-movie landing.

Reviewed at SVA Theater, New York, Nov. 29, 2021. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 146 MIN.

Production: A 20th Century Studios, Walt Disney Company release of a 20th Century Studios, Amblin Entertainment production, in association with TSG Entertainment. Producers: Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Kevin McCollum. Executive producers: Tony Kushner, Daniel Lupi, Rita Moreno, Adam Somner.
Crew: Director: Steven Spielberg. Screenplay: Tony Kushner. Camera: Janusz Kaminski. Editors: Sarah Brosher, Michael Kahn. Music: Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim.
With: Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, Mike Faist, Rita Moreno, Corey Stoll, Brian d’Arcy James, Josh Andrés Rivera, Iris Menas.

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Do You Like West Side Story ? Then You’ll Love West Side Story .

You don’t need to know before going into West Side Story that Steven Spielberg has been itching to make a musical for pretty much his entire career. You can feel it in the film’s opening sequence, in the glee with which he follows the white gang of the Jets as its members emerge from beneath a pile of rubble and snap and strut their way down a bustling 1950s Upper West Side street. Spielberg punctuates their walk with offhand glimpses of everyday objects moving in rhythm — a closed lighter, a tossed coin, a blown newspaper. It’s musical, sure, but it’s also … Spielbergian, reminiscent of any number of precisely, playfully choreographed scenes from his previous pictures. You half expect to see Indiana Jones swing in and start cracking his bullwhip in time to the beat.

West Side Story does feel at times like a movie to which the director’s entire career has been building. He is, after all, our foremost master of blocking, and it’s hard to think of a better arena in which to demonstrate his powers. Not just because of the grace and rigor required to stage any film musical, but this one in particular, with modern dance built into its DNA. This isn’t a popular opinion, but I’ll share it anyway: In Robert Wise’s widely-beloved, Oscar-soaked 1961 film, the camera had to step back to take in the jazzy, whirling grandeur of Jerome Robbins’s choreography — and the results were aggressively, frustratingly theatrical. Spielberg goes in the opposite direction: He’s unafraid to plunge his camera into the swirling, leaping, kicking bodies (their movements courtesy this time of New York City Ballet choreographer Justin Peck). He’s unafraid, in other words, to make West Side Story , above all, a movie.

Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner are also unafraid to tamper with the narrative, in ways that might at first seem subtle but turn out to be profound. Don’t worry (or, depending on your point of view — worry), this is still West Side Story : The tale of star-crossed lovers Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler), he formerly of the Jets and she the sister of Bernardo (David Alvarez), leader of the Sharks, the local Puerto Rican gang. What was once mostly a clever setting in the original (Robbins, composer Leonard Bernstein, and writer Arthur Laurents initially envisioned the project as East Side Story , set among Catholics and Jews, so the tale’s cultural milieu was always, on some level, grafted on) here becomes an opportunity to touch on the sociopolitical roots of working-class racism and violence.

The new film opens on a devastated, practically bombed-out New York street, in the midst of the notorious, Robert Moses-led slum clearance that made way for what would one day become Lincoln Center. The Jets resent the Puerto Ricans for moving into a neighborhood that was once “theirs” — but everybody’s about to get pushed out, so they’re all fighting for scraps. This is a far cry from “two households, both alike in dignity”: The Sharks seem to be average neighborhood guys with jobs. Reluctant warriors who simply want to protect their people, they retain some semblance of a moral high ground, while the Jets are just a bunch of young, dumb, racist punks spoiling for a fight. Tony’s own hesitation to rejoin his former gang is the result of a year spent in prison for beating an Egyptian kid nearly to death during an earlier turf war.

All that new context is important, but what really makes the movie is the exuberant kineticism of its musical set pieces, particularly the big, crowded ones. The dance-off at the gym, in which the Jets and the Sharks and their respective dates face off against one another, is a kaleidoscope of movement, contrasting the sensuous moves of the Sharks against the more aggressive, athletic Jets, the camera spinning and careening among them. “America,” meanwhile, begins on a fire escape amid hanging laundry, moves through apartment building corridors, and spills out into the street into a spirited, colorful carnival of twirling dresses and bright smiles.

Spielberg and Kushner have also redistributed the songs in savvy, sometimes powerful ways. In a departure from the earlier film, they’ve restored Maria’s singing of “I Feel Pretty” to after the big climactic rumble and Tony’s killing of her brother — as it is on stage — so that tragedy looms over the number’s colorful, candy-box buoyancy; the effect is crushing. The mournful “Somewhere” is now sung not by the young lovers, but by Rita Moreno’s heartbroken Valentina (a new character, replacing Doc, the original white drugstore owner and Tony’s kindly boss — she’s basically his widow and is now in charge of the store), thus turning a love song into something downright civilizational. On the lips of this character, played by the actress whose portrayal of Anita in the 1961 film famously won her an Oscar , the piece becomes less about two doomed young lovers dreaming of a world where they can be together and more a lament for the millions who come to these shores looking for a better life only to find hate, humiliation, and murder. Such alterations probably better reflect the more despairing sociopolitical landscape of 2021 than the optimism of 1957, or 1961. You walk away from that earlier film thinking that reconciliation among these people might still be possible. No such hope exists here. But these changes aren’t opportunistic, or cynical. They’re organic. The story quite simply makes more sense this way.

Such changes also feel necessary for another reason. Because just as we’ve always suspected that Spielberg would be in his element helming a proper musical, it’s also been clear over the years that he’s all thumbs when it comes to romance. So, he and Kushner judiciously shift focus away from the young lovers to the ruins among which their love blossoms. It would not be fair, however, to say that they don’t even try for romance; this is, after all, still a riff on Romeo and Juliet . Sadly, Elgort and Zegler have zero chemistry, and their love-at-first-sight moment at that aforementioned dance remains thoroughly unconvincing. Shakespeare sold it with heavenly flights of immortal words; Wise gave it a shot with the one cinematic idea he had, which was to send everything onscreen besides Tony and Maria into a blur. Spielberg fares better, isolating the lovers with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski’s blinding gauntlets of otherworldly lens-flare. One appreciates the effort, if not the effect.

But the actors themselves are game, each in their own way. Zegler is the true find, a marvelous singer and a radiant persona, and Spielberg and Kaminski film her like a bright flare in a twilit ocean; her sheer presence papers over some of the more facile aspects of Maria’s characterization. Elgort, by contrast, moves through the film like a porcelain aristocrat. His performance of “Maria,” set among abandoned playgrounds and back-alleys and one gloriously shimmering puddle, feels more tenuous than heartfelt, like a rehearsal in which the actor is still working through his moves. But there are times when his reserve kind of works. He does in fact seem like a young man with a violent past trying to keep his cool. When he gets his big moment of grief right near the end, those aloof features of his briefly twist into a grotesque mush, and it’s surprisingly tender.

I’ve never been a fan of West Side Story , in part because I admire more than adore the jaunty, brassy midcentury triumphalism of Bernstein’s sound, and the combination of modern dance with gang-war hysterics has always felt like a bracing theatrical idea that never quite seemed right on a film screen. That’s a me problem, to be sure. (There is also, of course, the original’s indulgence of ethnic stereotypes, not to mention all that brownface — but at least some of those shortcomings could be traced to its era.) It’s certainly to Spielberg’s eternal credit that his film made even this curmudgeon (briefly) forget (most of) my issues with West Side Story . I suspect even the 1961 movie’s devotees might agree that this iteration surpasses Wise’s old war horse. Whether this new picture is a masterpiece, or a masterful reimagining of a troublesome original, will have to remain in the eye of the beholder.

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West Side Story Reviews

If you don’t know the name Rachel Zegler yet, you will soon. Her performance as María is magnificent, she has awe-inspiring vocals, and does an excellent job of capturing the character’s innocence

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 29, 2024

a must-watch for film fans.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 22, 2024

“West Side Story” is worth watching for Ariana DeBose’s performance as Anita. Our Queen’s story arc from hopeful, ambitious, vivacious migrant to mournful, vengeful survivor was the most powerful one in the story.

Full Review | Jun 9, 2024

From the audacious opening shot to the decision to stage "America" off of a rooftop; Spielberg, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, and a fabulous adaptation from Tony Kushner enable West Side Story to make all the right choices for a 2021 update.

Full Review | Feb 24, 2024

Dazzling, & truly a throwback to old classic musicals/filmmaking. They don’t make movies like this anymore

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

West Side Story is about creating a home, however, you choose to define the word. Unfortunately, the miscasting of Tony brings down what could have been a near-perfect movie.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

Steven Spielberg elevates a classic romance by refining its wider socio-cultural ideas, creating an impassioned musical bursting with color and festivity

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 21, 2023

I have no shame in admitting that I was one of the doubters before this was released. I mean, it’s only a reworking of one of the most influential movie musicals ever. Luckily, that Spielberg guy knows what he’s doing.

Full Review | May 1, 2023

It's as faithful as can be with its own punch to pack: West Side Story stands out on its own while paying homage to its inspiration.

Full Review | Feb 23, 2023

Spielberg defies the odds and equalizes, if not surpasses, the magic of the original film.

Full Review | Feb 21, 2023

"There’s no way to get around the fact that Spielberg’s West Side Story is a modern masterpiece. In a year chock full of live-action musicals, this one rises above the rest."

Full Review | Nov 19, 2022

From a physical and emotional standpoint, the end result is not quite a rumble in the Bronx, more of a fumble in the asphalt jungle. As pure cinematic spectacle however, this version of West Side Story is still pretty finger-clicking good.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 12, 2022

Ariana DeBose’s stunning knockout turn gives West Side Story its juice. In a perfect world, she should be a lock for an Oscar nomination.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 21, 2022

Some have questioned the need for another “West Side Story”. I don’t know whether we “needed” it. But I’m thrilled that Steven Spielberg gave us one.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 16, 2022

With this swooning, socially aware story of star-crossed lovers, Spielberg pirouettes back from his atrocious last flick by embracing something he clearly adores, and being unafraid to give it rhythmic swirls and thematic twirls.

Full Review | Jul 8, 2022

Spielberg appropriates an old musical... He recalibrates the language, redirects the dialogue, and then, the same themes can rise up rejuvenated. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jun 28, 2022

Spielberg has aimed to create a magnificent spectacle in hopes of a movie theater revival. Although, I regretfully doubt it. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jun 9, 2022

West Side Story immediately dissipates any concern about the master director’s ability to deliver the blend of theatrical and cinematic artistry it deserves.

Full Review | May 19, 2022

A prime example of how to go about remaking a classic. It's a shame that the filmmaking itself never reaches the ecstatic heights of the original.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | May 10, 2022

Steven Spielbergs WEST SIDE STORY is pure classic Hollywood musical magic. Spectacular emotional filmmaking that almost completely blew me away.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Apr 25, 2022

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West side story 2021: why the reviews are so positive.

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Steven Spielberg’s latest project is a new take on the acclaimed musical West Side Story , and it’s already getting positive reviews from critics. Musicals continue to be very popular with the audience, and so are their adaptations to the big screen, and with the current remake and reboot trends, some musicals are getting new adaptations, as is the case of West Side Story , conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and which was first adapted to the big screen in 1961.

Inspired by William Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet , West Side Story takes the audience to the 1950s to meet rival street gangs the Jets (a white gang) and the Sharks (from Puerto Rico). Their conflict only grows when Tony (Ansel Elgort), a former Jet, falls in love with Maria (Rachel Zegler) , the sister of the Sharks’ leader, Bernardo (David Alvarez). The 1961 version of West Side Story , starring Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer, is regarded as one of the greatest musical movies ever made, and with Steven Spielberg now on the lead, expectations are high with this new version – and so far, it has been doing great with critics.

Related: Where To Watch West Side Story 1961 Online Before Spielberg's Remake

After a couple of delays, West Side Story is releasing in theaters on December 10, coinciding with the anniversary of the 1961 movie, and at the time of writing, it has a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 107 reviews. Most praise is going towards Spielberg’s direction, the performances of the cast, and its faithfulness to the original play, and some even find it to be better than the 1961 version. Here’s what some of the positive reviews of West Side Story are saying:

“Award-winning playwright Tony Kushner's sophisticated adapted screenplay deepens character development and frames the central battle against an ominous backdrop from its first moment. Steven Spielberg is at the top of his game, delivering a musical marvel that is overflowing with emotion and visual splendor. The songs are gorgeous as ever. The dance numbers are astonishing, not only in the talents of their performers but also in a sublime synergy of cinematography and editing that truly relishes in the movement of camera and subject.”

Associated Press :

“Rachel Zegler’s María, Ariana DeBose’s Anita and David Alvarez’s Bernardo are, to remarkable degree, what makes this “West Side Story” sing. And the story, as scripted by Kushsner, is more emotional and complex than ever, fully realizing the “Romeo and Juliet” tragedy while shading the ’50s gang strife with notes of today’s divisions and battles of gentrification.”

The AV Club :

“Zegler, a YouTube celebrity making her big-screen debut, is radiantly innocent—in her starry-eyed naivete, we can see glimmers of the show’s tragic upshot, a vision of children rushing too fast out of childhood. Ariana DeBose offers a rainbow of conflicting emotions as Sharks moll Anita, her brassy confidence shattering into heartbreak.”

“Spielberg and Kushner clearly revere that history, but they’re also not intimidated by it; there are any number of instances where viewers can point to this song placement or that bit of character backstory as a new idea that the two have brought to the property, but this is a take on “West Side Story” that’s both reverent and exciting.”

Cinemablend :

“One of Steven Spielberg’s genius touches in West Side Story is primarily casting his ensemble with newcomers. Not recognizing primary characters from other projects and productions serves to beautifully enhance the illusion that audiences are witnessing a window into another era. Obviously it’s a risky proposition to work with talent unproven on the big screen, but the instincts of the filmmakers prove to be phenomenal. This isn’t to say that veterans like Corey Stoll, Brian d’Arcy James and Rita Moreno don’t provide outstanding performances respectively playing Lieutenant Schrank, Officer Krupke, and Valentina (who is a reconceived iteration of the character Doc from the theatrical production/1961 movie), but it’s the fresh faces who own the film.”

The characters glare at each other on the dance floor in West Side Story

When it comes to the performances in Spielberg’s West Side Story , all eyes are going towards Zegler’s María, Ariana DeBose’s Anita, and Mike Faist’s Riff, the leader of the Jets, all of them often credited with being the real heart of the story thanks to the energy and charm they bring to their characters. There’s also a lot of praise towards Rita Moreno and her performance as Valentina , and with that comes a shout out to Spielberg and writer Tony Kushner for not leaving Moreno’s role as a cameo and fan service element (as she famously won an Oscar for her role as Anita in the 1961 version), as they made her part of the story, thus serving as a link between both versions of the musical. Many critics are also pointing out Janusz Kamiński’s cinematography as a strength, which gives West Side Story a more grounded look (in line with Spielberg’s approach to the story) while also evoking the aesthetic of old Hollywood. However, not everything is flawless when it comes to West Side Story , and the main criticism seems to be all about Elgort’s performance, which is also overshadowed by some legal issues he went through during post-production. Here’s what the negative reviews of West Side Story are saying:

Independent UK :

“On the side of the Jets, the balance in talent certainly doesn’t come from Tony, played onscreen by Ansel Elgort. His presence in the film is already an uncomfortable one, following sexual allegations made against him last year (he’s denied them), but even if you were to judge Elgort’s performance in total isolation, his stilted monotone delivery still falls completely flat when pitched against a cast of energetic, highly expressive theatre professionals.”

Film School Rejects :

“Unfortunately, the casting of this cinematic revival isn’t entirely successful. In fact, some of the casting decisions are among the worst elements of the new adaptation. One in particular even ruins the movie as a whole: Ansel Elgort appears in the lead role of Tony, and he’s lacking in personality, charisma, and expression. He gives the audience nothing to hold onto or care about with the character, and his shortcomings extend to his chemistry with Zegler, which hurts the romantic narrative at the core of West Side Story.”

Little White Lies :

“Yet there’s barely a moment where Elgort doesn’t feel as if he’s waded too far into the deep end, his small, dark eyes adding an air of unnecessary mystery to a character whose heart should literally be there on his sleeve. The earnest simplicity of Tony has been taken for granted, and this feels like a major miscast when it comes to making sure the emotional foundations of this towering story are there, set deep in the ground.”

Even if Elgort’s performance isn’t at the same level as those of the rest of the cast, critics are finding more things to praise about this new take on West Side Story than flaws, though it’s worth noting that a couple of critics are calling it the beginning of the end of Spielberg’s mostly impeccable career – but that, as with every other movie, is something that, ultimately, the audience will decide depending on their own experiences and perception of the story, though it all points at Spielberg’s casting and creative choices being on point and creating a story that will resonate with a diverse audience.

Next: Spielberg Already Revealed The Perfect Western For His Next Movie

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Johnny Oleksinski

‘west side story’ review: spielberg’s take on musical not as bad as you’d think.

The best part of Steven Spielberg’s new film of “West Side Story” isn’t the dance at the gym, or the Sharks and Jets’ scuffle in the prologue, or Tony and Maria’s love duet.

Oddly enough, it’s the jazzy song “Cool” that’s performed ahead of the rumble. “Got a rocket in your pocket. Keep coolly cool, boy!” the antsy Jets sing before their battle with their rival Puerto Rican gang.

This is show-queen blasphemy, I know, but the jolting number tops Jerome Robbins’ iconic original choreography and Robert Wise’s Oscar-winning 1961 film.

It’s absolutely ferocious.

WEST SIDE STORY

Running time: 156 minutes. Rated PG-13 (some strong violence, strong language, thematic content, suggestive material and brief smoking). In theaters Dec. 10.

Spielberg transplants the sparky scene to a decrepit dock by the river — it has the bleak look of the final scene of “On the Waterfront” — and choreographer Justin Peck has Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Riff (Mike Faist) fight in glorious dance over a loaded gun.

Those shifts in locale, subtly updating the tunes’ drives and motivation, are what make Spielberg’s very good adaptation of Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents’ musical memorable. It’s the “ET” director’s most visually exciting film in a zillion years.

Still, it’s not gonna become a classic in the way the 1961 original movie adaptation did. Where this “Story” occasionally walks into West Side Highway traffic is screenwriter Tony Kushner’s many needless additions to the script. The “Angels in America” scribe has never met a plot he couldn’t stretch out like a medieval torture victim.

Now, young lover Tony is an ex-convict. Maria’s (Rachel Zegler) parents are dead (clearly to avoid any implication that they’re absent). There’s a gentrification subplot about how the neighborhood is about to be demolished to build Lincoln Center and the streets are covered in rubble. It’s too much.

Ariana DeBose, center, plays Anita in "West Side Story."

Getting uber-specific and justifying every single choice that dumb teens make saps the story of its magic and universality. There’s no ironclad equation for why we fall in love or why we hate.

There is a gorgeous line in the 1957 show that’s naturally been cut. Doc admonishes the boys and tells them, “You make the world lousy.”

“That’s the way we found it, Doc.”

A lot more compelling than blaming a construction project, no?

Kushner doesn’t totally derail the movie, though, which is a great pick to bring your family to over the holidays. Ninety percent of it is the “West Side” you know and love.

It’s the classic tale based on “Romeo and Juliet” — Did Shakespeare tell us the reason the Capulets and Montagues are feuding? Nope! — in which Polish Tony, one of the Jets, falls in love with Puerto Rican Maria, the little sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks.

Ansel Elgort as Tony in "West Side Story"

So begins a whirlwind romance that, over the course of just one day, has its leading man sing, “Always you, every thought I’ll ever know! Everywhere I go, you’ll be!” That’d be a dating red flag in 2021, but here it makes your heart soar.

Or it’s supposed to. Unfortunately we don’t fall in love with Elgort like we should. There are a lot of choices an actor can make with Tony — puppy dog, sexual, obsessive, whatever — but Elgort, who was excellent in “Baby Driver,” picked “stoner needs a nap.” “Maria” is one of the most beautiful songs ever written in a musical, yet here it’s a shrug. That’s a shame, because Broadway audiences were briefly treated to Isaac Powell’s interpretation in 2020 , which was as good as it gets.

The mood is instantly lifted, however, when Elgort meets up with the wonderful Zegler on a fire escape. Smart Spielberg locks it, so there is a sexy barrier between them. Zegler shows us her sweet singing voice and radiating goodness that evokes Maria the singing nun.

It’s the ensemble that wows most, though. Faist makes an unusually spindly Riff, yet he is scarier than any I’ve seen. Bernardo, the best role in the show, is given real intensity by David Alvarez, and Ariana DeBose dances the dickens out of “America” as Anita.

Rita Moreno, a star of the original "West Side Story," returns in a new role.

And then there’s Rita Moreno. The original Anita plays a new role , Valentina, the owner of Doc’s Drugstore. The late Doc was her husband and she takes Tony in as a tenant. At 89, there is pathos and tenderness in every word, breath and note. In the song “Somewhere,” she sings “there’s a place for us.”

Be glad Spielberg found a place for her.

West Side Story (United States, 2021)

In his nearly 50 years of movie-making, Steven Spielberg has traveled along many different roads but West Side Story represents his first musical. A remake that draws on both of its classic inspirations – the 1961 Oscar-winning movie (directed by Robert Wise) and the 1957 Broadway stage show upon which it was based – West Side Story functions as both a loving homage and an update (in terms of its casting and some of its attitudes). It’s one of those rare instances when a remake doesn’t feel superfluous and there are aspects of the film (particularly in the acting department) where the 2021 version is superior to its predecessor.

A loose reworking of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet , the movie transpires in New York's Upper West Side during the late 1950s. The feuding Montagues and Capulets are represented by rival gangs: the Jets and the Sharks. The former group is comprised of first-generation New Yorkers whose parents came across on boats during the early decades of the century. Their rivals are Puerto Rican immigrants who are newly arrived in the United States. The constant skirmishing of the Jets and the Sharks is primed to explode into an open war, but not before Tony (Ansel Elgort), a founder of the Jets (who is no longer with the gang – once released from a stint in prison, he has gone straight and gotten a job), falls in love with Maria (Rachel Zegler), the sister of the Sharks' leader, Bernardo (David Alvarez). In true Romeo and Juliet fashion, these two defy conventions and risk everything, including their lives, to be with one another. And, also as in Shakespeare's play, there are no happy endings.

Another alteration is the manner in which violence is portrayed. For his film, Wise relied on the choreography of Jerome Robbins to convey brutality without showing it. As I wrote in my original review, “ West Side Story is almost bloodless… All the fights are highly stylized and divorced from reality. The characters dance around each other while in the process of stalking and attacking. Yet there's a real sense of menace to some of these scenes... We end up feeling the violence more than seeing it. It doesn't always work… but it enables a grittier story to be told within the musical framework.” For the remake, Spielberg has done away with the posturing and opted for a more straightforward and conventional approach. There is blood and the movie earns its PG-13 rating because of those scenes. The rumble in particular is harrowing.

Choreographer Justin Peck opts not to recreate Jerome Robbins’ work, preferring instead to fashion new dance numbers that at times pay homage to the originals without being blind copies. Leonard Bernstein’s score, arranged and adapted by David Newman with an assist from John Williams, is perfectly matched to Peck’s contributions. The songs, both those that have become standards (“Tonight” and “Somewhere”) and those that are less known but still memorable (“I Feel Pretty”, “Maria”, and especially “America”), are all present and accounted for. The upbeat songs are robust and exuberant; the more introspective ones are passionate.

The road to the new West Side Story had its roots in Spielberg’s love of the 1961 movie. The decision to make the new version wasn’t without its dangers – oftentimes, director’s “pet projects” underwhelm (including two of Spielberg’s previous ones, Always and Hook ). This one, however, defies that trend. Watching West Side Story is a little like reconnecting with a good friend after they have undergone a makeover. Most of the worthy qualities remain but some of the more awkward and/or dated ones have been re-sculpted. This is no soulless cash-grab. Spielberg’s West Side Story is a resplendent entertainment and a reminder that at least some of cinema’s great classics can in fact find new life in the hands of a master director who is more concerned about crafting a movie than making a blockbuster.

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West side story.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 7 Reviews
Kids Say 43 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

By Kate Pluta , based on child development research. How do we rate?

Musical masterpiece tackles race, with some violence.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 11+?

Big fight scene leads to two characters being stabbed to death. In another scene

Words "hell" and "s--t" are used, as are derogatory names: "spic" and "Polack."

A musical number mentions drinking and the use of specific drugs. In dialogue, b

Brief reference to sex work and some kissing.

Coca-Cola bottles and boxes are moved about, and classic Chevrolet cars line the

Any Positive Content?

Explores themes of social injustice and judicial corruption in mid-1950s New Yor

Maria is an inspirational role model who doesn't believe in fighting or war. She

Features two gangs, one White and one Puerto Rican. While many major characters

Violence & Scariness

Big fight scene leads to two characters being stabbed to death. In another scene, a female character is sexually assaulted. Lastly, a character is tragically shot to death, and another character points a gun and threatens to kill others and then themselves.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Words "hell" and "s--t" are used, as are derogatory names: "spic" and "Polack." Someone pokes fun at Anita for being "queer for Uncle Sam."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

A musical number mentions drinking and the use of specific drugs. In dialogue, brief references to alcoholism. Many characters smoke cigarettes (accurate for the era).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Coca-Cola bottles and boxes are moved about, and classic Chevrolet cars line the streets. Bromo Seltzer and Tootsie Roll also seen.

Positive Messages

Explores themes of social injustice and judicial corruption in mid-1950s New York and encourages viewers to question the meaning of "liberty." Although America is known as "land of the free," movie portrays how incoming immigrants struggle and are discriminated against. Revolves around love budding between two people who come from groups that hate each other. But violent, climactic ending leaves an open question as to whether love really conquers all, especially racial hatred.

Positive Role Models

Maria is an inspirational role model who doesn't believe in fighting or war. She's able to view people for who they really are, rather than focusing on race or social class. Male role models are lessons to be learned from. Riff and Bernardo are unable to let their hate for one another subside. Determined to hurt each other, they'll fight to the death, even if it's at the expense of someone else's life.

Diverse Representations

Features two gangs, one White and one Puerto Rican. While many major characters are meant to be Puerto Rican, nearly all actors except Anita (played by Puerto Rican icon Rita Moreno) are non-Hispanic White. Movie relies heavily on inaccurate Spanish accents and stereotypes of Latinos as gang members.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that West Side Story is co-directors Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins' retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in 1950s New York. It stars Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer and explores race relations and immigration in a musical format that pits a White gang against a Puerto Rican one. Despite touching on race, only one of the main actors, Rita Moreno , is Latina. The movie includes several negative stereotypes about Latinos. Street fighting and knifings are depicted, though the impact of some of the violence is lessened by the choreography. In one disturbing scene, a gang of young men physically abuse a young woman, and sexual assault takes place. A major character is shot and killed. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (7)
Kids say (43)

Based on 7 parent reviews

Don't foget

Classic movie for the right audience, what's the story.

A classic American musical with strong social commentary, WEST SIDE STORY updates Shakespeare's tragedy about star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, to 1950s New York City, where second-generation American street gang the Jets, led by Riff ( Russ Tamblyn ), are at constant odds with rival Puerto Rican gang the Sharks. A showdown is inevitable, but love gets in the way when Jets member Tony ( Richard Beymer ) falls for Maria ( Natalie Wood ), the sister of Sharks leader Bernardo (George Chakiris). People die and hearts get broken.

Is It Any Good?

Co-directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, this beautiful musical is a visual masterpiece packed with talent. The music of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim is unforgettable, as are the Oscar-winning performances of George Chakiris as Bernardo and Rita Moreno as Anita, the spunky girlfriend of Bernardo and confidant of Maria.

The raging emotions of the characters are expressed through song and dance (Jerome Robbins' choreography mixes jazz, ballet, and Latin influences), resulting in a kinetic display of emotion more expressive than words. Stylish streetwise sets and cinematic technique take West Side Story to another level, rich with visual symbolism.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the issues of racism, immigration, gangs, and youth culture. What do you think the two gangs in West Side Story would say about the American Dream?

What kinds of stereotypes are explored in this movie? Does the movie serve to challenge or reinforce stereotypes?

Movie Details

In theaters : December 23, 1961
On DVD or streaming : April 1, 2002
Cast : Natalie Wood , Richard Beymer , Rita Moreno
Directors : Jerome Robbins , Robert Wise
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Latino actors
Studio : MGM/UA
Genre : Musical
Topics : Arts and Dance , Brothers and Sisters , Friendship
Run time : 152 minutes
MPAA rating : NR
Last updated : July 6, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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West Side Story Directed by Steven Spielberg: Film Review
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West Side Story Movie Review: A Breathtaking and Brilliant Reimagining
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Classic Film Review: West Side Story!

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Full Review | Jul 29, 2022. The film version of West Side Story often pops up on Greatest Movie of All Time lists thanks to its unique blending of realism & metaphorical dance and performances by ...
'West Side Story' review: Steven Spielberg's remake is undeniably ...
Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story' will make you believe in movies again. Ariana DeBose (center) is Anita in West Side Story. A lot of us had our doubts when we heard that Steven Spielberg would ...
Steven Spielberg's West Side Story Is a Stunning Achievement
On top of it all, West Side Story—shot by Spielberg regular Janusz Kaminski—is possibly the most gorgeous-looking film of the year.There are eight million lens flares in the naked city, and a ...
Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story' Review
Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story': Film Review. The 1957 musical masterwork is sumptuously reimagined, with Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler as the young lovers torn apart by a climate of ...
West Side Story review: Steven Spielberg pulls off the near-impossible
review: Steven Spielberg pulls off the near-impossible in glowing remake. Breeze it, buzz it, easy does it. In a world where Batman seems to reboot biannually and even Space Jam gets a sequel, it ...
West Side Story (2021)
West Side Story: Directed by Steven Spielberg. With Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez. 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.
Review: 'West Side Story' is Steven Spielberg's most exhilarating movie
That scene has long been one of "West Side Story's" emotional (and literal) high points, and Spielberg's staging and blocking — aided here, as ever, by Justin Peck's sterling ...
'West Side Story' Review: Steven Spielberg's Gritty, Rousing Upgrade
'West Side Story' Review: Steven Spielberg Gives the Musical Classic a Gritty, Rousing Upgrade Reviewed at SVA Theater, New York, Nov. 29, 2021. MPAA Rating: PG-13.
West Side Story Review
Steven Spielberg's West Side Story. 8 Images. The film's focus isn't new, so much as it is renewed. It takes magnified aim at the white supremacy that underscored the original, and in the ...
Movie Review: Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story'
Movie review: Steven Spielberg has finally made a musical, and his remake of the 1961 Oscar winner is filled with great dance numbers. ... West Side Story does feel at times like a movie to which ...
West Side Story
West Side Story is about creating a home, however, you choose to define the word. Unfortunately, the miscasting of Tony brings down what could have been a near-perfect movie. Full Review | Jul 25 ...
West Side Story
Dec 9, 2021. This West Side Story proves someone can still leave their mark on the legend without building it from the ground up. It's a classic Spielberg joint, a classic hat-tip to Hollywood, and a classic, period. Read More. By David Fear FULL REVIEW.
West Side Story
West Side Story remains a landmark of musical history. But if the drama had been as edgy as the choreography, if the lead performances had matched Moreno's fierce concentration, if the gangs had been more dangerous and less like bad-boy Archies and Jugheads, if the ending had delivered on the pathos and tragedy of the original, there's no telling what might have resulted.
'West Side Story' movie review: Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner?s
Such is the case with "West Side Story," Steven Spielberg's vibrant, urgent, utterly beautiful revival of the 1961 adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical.
West Side Story (2021) Movie Review
Director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner's adaptation of the classic Broadway musical-turned-movie WEST SIDE STORY is, like the original, a Romeo and Juliet-inspired story of star-crossed love and warring street gangs in midtown Manhattan in the late 1950s. The Jets, who are White and led by Riff (Mike Faist), and the Sharks, who ...
West Side Story 2021: Why The Reviews Are So Positive
Related: Where To Watch West Side Story 1961 Online Before Spielberg's Remake. After a couple of delays, West Side Story is releasing in theaters on December 10, coinciding with the anniversary of the 1961 movie, and at the time of writing, it has a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 107 reviews. Most praise is going towards Spielberg's ...
'West Side Story' review: Spielberg's take not as bad as you'd think
The best part of Steven Spielberg's new film of "West Side Story" isn't the dance at the gym, or the Sharks and Jets' scuffle in the prologue, or Tony and Maria's love duet. Oddly ...
West Side Story
There is blood and the movie earns its PG-13 rating because of those scenes. The rumble in particular is harrowing. It's in the casting of the five major characters that Spielberg's West Side Story asserts a superiority. As Tony, Ansel Elgort is a far better performer than Richard Beymer, whose primary qualification related to his looks.
West Side Story Movie Review
West Side Story Movie Review

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Reviewed at SVA Theater, New York, Nov. 29, 2021. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 146 MIN.

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