West Side Story – 2021 movie

the film is pretty good. The city and upper west side is at a point of change. To become a richer area. And slums are loosing out. Rachel Zegler is excellent, David Alvarez is excellent. Ariana DeBose will win the Oscar for her acting, she was phenomenal. This will be a career moment for her. Excellent singing, acting and amazing dancing. Her depth was astonishing. I thought the direction was excellent too, 

Wait Officer Krupke was Brian d'Arcy James !

Ansel Elgort was pretty boring.
4.5/5

Ps with the dancing is the very fine lines of the dancing and elegance supposed to be contrasting with the violence they do in the film

Ariana DeBose and David Alvarez were very good together. Rachel was excellent 

Was the Lincoln Centre really getting built at that time

So my perfectly valid comment was deleted. Because it offended someone`s own gender politics opinion.

I saw it again yesterday, as I found a cinema in reasonable distance still showing it AND at a reasonable time. I’d say it was over half full. I loved it again of course.

Now available to watch on Disney+

Watched West Side Story on Disney+ last night. From the moment it starts, you can tell it’s directed by Steven Spielberg, as you get big swooping camera shots that reveal the setting (a derelict part of New York). I have to say that the camerawork throughout the film, especially the way Spielberg captures the dancing throughout the film is superb.

For those who don’t know, West Side Story is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet that transitions it to New York and tells of members of two different gangs who fall in love (with tragic consequences). One gang is made up of a Puerto Rican community (Sharks) and the other from Yankee descent (Jets). I felt the show adapted Romeo & Juliet exceptionally well and for me it all fits together in a much more coherent way than other adaptations of Shakespeare’s play (like & Juliet).

Another thing I felt that worked really well in this new film was the transition from dialogue to song. And this is something that the performance of Ansel Elgort in particular I felt added. It just felt natural and effortless that the song was starting. Ansel plays Tony, who is trying to get out of the Jets gang and get a job but his former gang mate Riff keeps pulling him back into it. My one criticism of Ansel’s performance is that when he was mocking Riff, in the song Cool, he could have mocked him more. He always seemed to play the role rather seriously, which - for the most part - worked but it would have been good to see a sillier side at times.

Mike Faist as Riff gave an extremely believable performance. He portrayed someone who is desperate to cling on to the life he knows so well. He really helped me to buy into the story.

One of the highlights of the film is one of the show’s most famous songs being sung by 1961 West Side Story film star Rita Moreno. Rita played a shop owner who gives Tony his chance of getting out of the gang and she played the role straight from the heart.

Also giving a heartfelt performance was Rachel Zegler as Maria, the Puerto Rican that Tony fancies. Her voice blends so well with Ansel’s on iconic love songs like Tonight; the big balcony scene moment of Shakespeare’s play (the use of camerawork through the balcony gratings so well done). And she captures the playfulness of songs like I Feel Pretty so well.

I felt like the whole film completely enraptured me for 2 hours and 40 minutes; which is not an easy feat. I would say it’s arguably one of the greatest movie musicals of all time.

Lots of behind the scenes footage of how all the musical numbers were filmed has appeared on YouTube. If you're interested in the work that goes into creating a "number" you'll learn a lot.

somewhat late catching up with this, and rather enjoyed it, even if therer was a lot of lyric illustrating 'business' but no matter. And there#s still an awkwardness with movies letting people burst into song and dance without trying to find a reason, but it was ever thus. I did think this rather special though. a question - so Anita tells Valentina that Maria has been shot, but Valentina doesn't even register that Maria is alive in that final scene - maybe i missed something. That will give me a good excuse to watch it again,

I've finally managed to see this at one of the few cinemas still screening it.

In my early twenties I concluded that West Side Story was one of the greatest musicals ever written, and that's an opinion I've held on to ever since. However, I'd not seen it on stage, or watched the original film, in decades, so this opinion was largely maintained by what I remembered of the book (e.g. the really clever tweaking of Shakespeare's plot in the final act, where Anita spits out that Maria has been killed, even though she hasn't - leading to an even more tragic ending than the original) and the fact that the music never stops being breath-taking and totally unlike any other musical score, then or now.

The new film, however, really highlighted for me the weaknesses in the show, despite also showing some of the strengths brilliantly. Chief amongst these is the really underwritten, underdeveloped relationship between the two central characters. I get it that it's young love, infatuation, a chemical rush to the brain and all that, but I just felt nothing. I didn't believe they were madly in love, not helped by Elgort's total lack of edge, and as such everything that followed felt beautifully presented but shallow. Why does Maria so quickly accept her brother's death at the hands of her lover? Where is her inner conflict? Where was the slow build to Tony cracking and committing murder? It all felt so underdeveloped.

I don't know if the fault lies in this film, or if the original stage show, which I'd now love to revisit, has the same problems. It's not helped by the fact that the lyrics are very compromised. We know that some lines are Bernstein's, rather than Sondheim's, and that this was Sondheim's first gig, but almost never do we get the piercing psychological insight that is his trademark. I think Something's Coming is a fantastic lyric, and the song Maria captures the joy of falling in love beautifully, but in general I felt more acutely aware than ever before that most of the non-comic or non-ensemble numbers have greetings card lyrics. In particular I find A Boy Like That/I Have a Love really lacking and a totally wasted opportunity.

I thought it was amazingly shot and the production design was breath-taking. There were really smart decisions with the script that others have already pointed out and I'd agree with. It was knowing and intelligent whilst also really natural, and many of the performances were great. But the ending felt rushed and badly staged compared with what I remember of the original film and I never ever got swept up in it or truly cared. Oh well - never mind!!

Having thought a bit more about what I said above, I think my problem stems from the fact that the book and direction have, I think, been reconfigured a little to make Maria more feisty. This in itself is really great, but now it becomes glaringly obvious that she has no strong musical statement of her own, and that felt like a big hole for me in a way that it hadn't before. Combined with what I feel to be a somewhat lacklustre Tony, who, of course, does have the big musical statements, this meant that it landed oddly for me, despite all that's great about it.

She isn't nominated and many of the crew are, capacity has been reduced for the audience and each Best Picture nominee only gets a certain number of tickets. It makes complete sense.

Plus she's filming in London so presumably wouldn't just fly back for a party rather than the ceremony itself. She wasn't invited to the Baftas either, she went as Mike Faist's plus one.

Have to admit I don't really see the point of her broadcasting that she wasn't invited. The film is already being represented by a nominated cast member and director, and Best Picture would be accepted by the producers, so she didn't really have any reason to be invited to the ceremony itself.