West Side Story. 2021. USA. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Screenplay by Tony Kushner, based on the play “West Side Story” by Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins. With Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose. DCP. 156 min.
Steven Spielberg’s 2021 restaging of West Side Story honors tradition while subtly updating the original for a less idealistic era. Reuniting with screenwriter Tony Kushner, Spielberg retains the setting of the Upper West Side circa 1957, carefully threading in details about the displacement of that neighborhood’s Puerto Rican community amid the groundbreaking for Lincoln Center. The basics of Maria (Rachel Zegler) and Tony (Ansel Elgort)’s star-crossed romance remain the same, but the twin threats of gang violence and the abuse of police power are now impossible to ignore, in sharp contrast with Robert Wise’s and Jerome Robbins’s more genteel 1961 adaptation. Magisterial yet playful, gritty yet proudly old-fashioned, this West Side Story makes 156 minutes feel like a breeze, a fluid exercise in color coordination, choreography, and camerawork. Despite steep generational expectations and the downright dizzying scale of production, Spielberg finds new ways to challenge himself—as always.