West Side Story
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by Tony Kushner, Arthur Laurents
Starring Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose
Release Date December 1oth, 2021
The big question surrounding Steven Speilberg’s big budget adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s legendary musical, West Side Story was why? Why remake West Side Story? What about this 60’s era paean to 1950s, post World War 2 angst carries any appeal today? What justifies remaking a movie that has a beloved original that is about as good as the material could likely be? Having seen Speilberg’s West Side Story, I still don’t have a good answer for that question. But, I can’t say I wasn’t entertained or moved by the effort on display.
West Side Story tells the tale of star-crossed lovers, Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler), who find themselves on opposite sides of a turf war in a dying portion of New York City. On Tony’s side is a group of luckless Polish youth being pushed out of their neighborhoods by the creep of urban sprawl, they call themselves The Jets. On the other side are a group of Puerto Rican youths, relatively new to New York City but similarly disenfranchised and being pushed out of their neighborhoods.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here.
