The cast is great, the music is orchestrated and conducted beautifully, the cinematography, production design, and costumes are gorgeous. Mike Faist (as Riff) is excellent. I loved Ariana DeBose (Anita) and Josh Andrés Rivera (Chino), and I have no complaints about any of the rest of the cast. They're all great. I liked it. I'm just not sure why this exists. Steven Spielberg's West Side Story is a very, very, very good production of something we didn't need a new production of.
Tony Kushner's new screenplay puts all of the events of
West Side Story into context. The new film historicizes the plot of
West Side Story. Good! But Spielberg, Kushner, and co. refuse to
change it. We spend all our time with the Jets, and we're supposed to feel an immense amount of compassion and sadness for these racist, violent boys playing at being men. And I
do feel compassion for these white supremacists. Of course I do. That's how the show is engineered. So
West Side Story 2021 is what it was back in the day. This is a nicer, fancier, gorgeous version of something that is the same thing that we've seen before.
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