West Side Story

Who says? Who knows?

If there is a director with a kinetic style who could bring back this musical, it is Steven Spielberg, but sitting through two hours and a half of this tepid update, I wished they’d just made a version with the music and the original choreography by Jerome Robbins and without the book. Radical, I know, but the score by Leonard Bernstein, the lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and the choreography by Jerome Robbins are a trifecta of creative genius and they have withstood the test of time. Let’s just have them without the need for anyone to speak ridiculous lines, not in a thick Noo Yawk accent, not in a thick Puerto Rican accent. This I think would solve every problem. Tony Kushner was brought in to update the book by Arthur Laurents. He adds everything but the kitchen sink — the shadow of Robert Moses, an updated trans character, an extra cop, Rita Moreno, lines spoken in Spanish (this adds some authentic flavor although it is mostly corny) — and nothing really helps. The one thing that helps is that the Latinos are now played by actual Latinos.

The problem with every work of musical theater that is translated to the screen is that the illusion of reality that works on a stage is very hard to translate when literalized for the camera. In the case of West Side Story, Hell’s Kitchen tenements rendered with stage design are more attractive than realistic ones for the camera…