Both Sides Now

When “West Side Story” premiered on Broadway in 1957, it was a milestone in several ways. Essentially “Romeo and Juliet” in New York, the presentation of gangs in a musical was groundbreaking. Rebel Without a Cause and The Blackboard Jungle had been released only 2 years earlier. It was conceived by a giant of musical theater, Jerome Robbins, who recruited playwright and screenwriter Arthur Laurents to do his first musical. Laurents later wrote “Gypsy” as well as two major movies of the 1970s, The Turning Point and The Way We Were, among other projects. For the score he brought in Leonard Bernstein, one of the most important conductors and composers of his time, and paired him with a rookie lyricist – Stephen Sondheim, who would become the premier writer/composer of musical theater for the next 50 years. The musical ran for over two years and snagged two Tony awards, including Best Musical.

It wasn’t surprising that a movie would follow 4 years later, and the Super Panavision 70 production, co-directed by Robbins and Hollywood veteran Robert Wise, was a smash hit, winning 10 Oscars out of 11 nominations, a record for musicals. The only loser was Ernest Lehman, who adapted the screenplay. Lehman was also nominated for his screenplays for Sabrina, North by Northwest, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and Hello, Dolly, but never won, though in 2001 he did receive an honorary Oscar for his body of work. While it was normal for its time, West Side Story suffered from a bad case of whitewashing, with Puerto Rican roles played by Natalie Wood, who was Russian and Ukrainian, and George Chakiris, whose ancestors were Greek. The only principle of Puerto Rican descent was Rita Moreno, who did take home a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, on her way to becoming the first female EGOT. Also, all the singing was dubbed, even for Moreno, with the go-to dubber Marni Nixon doing the singing for Maria.

Laurents was aware of the whitewashing problem with the musical. One of his last projects was to collaborate with Lin Manuel Miranda to replace some of the English dialogue with Spanish for the Latino characters. In 2019 there was a triumphant reimagining of the musical on Broadway, eliminating the anachronistic feeling and breathing fresh life into the music. Unfortunately, the pandemic ended its run early. Now we have a reimagining of the movie version as well, done by the premier director/producer of his generation, Steven Spielberg. To refresh the script, Spielberg brought in Tony and Pulitzer Award winner Tony Kushner, who’d previously worked with Spielberg on Munich and Lincoln.

From the very first shot, Spielberg expands and deepens the story. We first see rubble, broken bricks, fallen metal fire escapes. Then the camera slowly pans up to show a sign saying that condemned, blighted area would soon be replaced with a new complex to be called “The Lincoln Center.” While the Jets and the Sharks compete for control of their neighborhood, in fact they’ve both already lost to the city’s gentrification and urban renewal. The neighborhood in which multiple waves of immigrants had first found a home would soon be no more. Many of the scenes are played out on piles of rubble that use to be apartments.

Our introduction to the Jets with the song “When You’re A Jet,” has them collecting paint cans and heading to a playground where they deface a Puerto Rican Pride mural. The Sharks soon arrive, chasing the Jets through the streets, finally facing off with them in an empty lot, but the arrival of Lieutenant Schrank (Corey Stoll) and Sergeant Krupke (Brian d’Arcy James) stops the rumble before it can truly begin. Riff (Mike Faist), the leader of the Jets, wants to have a major rumble with the Sharks to settle once and for all which gang would have dominance, and decides to set it up with the leader of the Sharks, Bernardo (David Alvarez), during a mixer at the community center that night. However, he wants Tony (Ansel Elgort) with him, as the two had co-founded the Jets and had been best friends since childhood. Tony, though, had recently finished a year-long stretch in Sing Sing because of almost beating another gang member to death in a rumble. He’s now working at Doc’s Pharmacy, helping Doc’s widow, Valentina (Rita Moreno). At first, Tony refuses to attend the dance that night, but then he changes his mind.

Bernardo’s sister, Maria (Rachel Zegler), is having a hard time preparing for the dance, but is helped by Anita (Ariana DeBose) to find the proper outfit. Bernardo soon arrives with Chino (Josh Andres Rivera), a studious boy who is Bernardo’s close friend, though he’s prevented Chino from joining the Sharks. The mixer that night is essentially a pre-rumble through dance, but in the course of it, Tony and Maria dance their own pas de deux, setting in motion the love story with its tragic ending.

One major change Spielberg has done with his version is to make New York City a major character in the film. The ’61 version was stuck on soundstages, which made filming easier with the large Super-Panavision cameras. Spielberg has never been constrained in that way. Working with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, who’s been with Spielberg since Schindler’s List in ’93 (for which they both earned Oscars), Spielberg found locations throughout the city that breathed life into the music, such as the Jets performing “Cool” in a derelict dock area where they’re dancing over holes in the rotting floor, or “America” moving through the streets with vintage cars passing by.
Having Rita Moreno again involved in the film, this time taking the role of “Doc” from the 1961 version, adds strength to the production. In an interesting change, she performs “Somewhere” instead of Maria and Tony, changing it from an anthem of hope to a world-weary pray for understanding. There’s no dubbing of voices in this version; all the actors do their own singing, and they do it superbly. Besides Moreno, Elgort is the most recognized actor of the cast, having been a teen throb in The Fault in Our Stars and the Divergent series, but he showed his personal chops in Baby Driver. On the other hand, Rachel Zegler is making her movie debut after a casting search that looked at 30,000 actresses. She had performed the role while in school at the Bergen (NJ) Performing Arts Center, but it’s still a tremendous jump from there to a Spielberg fill. She pulls it off flawlessly. The rest of the cast is exceptional, though Arianna DeBose is on another level at Anita, who is the emotional heart of the story. She well deserves her Best Supporting Actress nomination, and it would be wonderful for her to take home the trophy 60 years after Moreno did it for the same role.

It’s hard to remake a movie that won 10 Oscars in its original form, but Spielberg has managed to do it spectacularly.

Beep, Beep!

Premium Rush isn’t sure if it wants to be a thriller or a Roadrunner cartoon.  It instead follows a route somewhere between those two, and ends up failing on both counts.

Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) had graduated from law school but instead of sitting the bar he has taken a job as a bicycle messenger in New York City.  He rides a bike that has no brakes and only one gear – as fast as he can pedal.  It’s a competitive job, where his nemesis Manny (Wole Parks) puts the moves on his girlfriend Vanessa (Dania Ramirez) as well as steals deliveries whenever he can.

Wilee’s called to do a pickup at his old law school by Vanessa’s former roommate, Nima (Jamie Chung).  Nima had asked Vanessa to move out on short notice, without giving her a clear reason why.  Now Nima wants Wilee to deliver an envelope to a woman in Chinatown, far downtown from the school.  It’s 5:30 and it must be there by 7 p.m.  Wilee says it will be tight getting it there in time, but he’ll do it.

But as Wilee’s preparing to leave, a man (Michael Shannon) comes up and says he’s one of the deans.  He has the receipt that Wilee had given Nima, and he wants the envelope back.  Wilee explains that once the envelope goes into his delivery bag, it doesn’t come out until it reaches its destination.  Wilee manages to get away from the man, but he gives chase in his car.  He’s later identified as Bobby Monday, and he has a very large secret.

The movie was written and directed by David Koepp, whose work as a writer (Jurassic Park, Death Becomes Her, Spiderman) and a director (Stir of Echoes, Secret Window) has been quite effective in the past.  This time, though, there are holes in the plot that you could ride a bicycle through.  He’s set it up at first like High Noon, taking place in real time, but that’s abandoned with the use of flashbacks and seeing the same scene from multiple angles, as well as a plot line that destroys the premise.  The visual style is like Google maps gone wild, though it’s not as clear as the mapping you see on Discovery Channel’s Cash Cab.

The actors don’t have all that much to do beyond riding bicycles and talking on cell phones.  There’s a subplot with a bicycle patrol cop (Christopher Place) who’s trying to catch Wilee, but it’s just Yosemite Sam going after Bugs Bunny – a simple bit of comic relief that gives a reason for more stunt riding.

That said, the stunt riding is the best part of the movie.  It’s filmed with exciting perspectives and cuts, and a clip included in the credits shows that Gordon-Levitt did put himself at risk doing the role.  He does shine above the muddle of this move, but I’m looking forward more to what he’ll do in Looper later this fall.

The main weakness of the movie is the Bobby Monday character.  Michael Shannon was quiet good in last year’s Take Shelter, but here he is an over-the-top caricature with a broad New York accent and an annoying giggle.  As a heavy, he doesn’t create any tension – you don’t believe he’s a serious threat (or a real person).  In a scene that should have been the emotional climax of the film, the audience ended up giggling back at him.

The only premium to put on a rush with this movie is to get away from the theater where it’s playing.