Sing pretty and say nothing: a review of the 2021 remake of West Side Story

In several ways, Stephen Spielberg’s West Side Story remake is quite good. The music is lively, the use of colour in the cinematography and costumes is inspired (although the costumes themselves can be questionable), and the pacing is refreshing. Unfortunately, this version of the musical, starring Ansel Elgort as Tony and Rachel Zegler as María, still has its drawbacks.

My first critique is of Puerto Rican representation, which has always been a contentious issue regarding this musical. Before writing anything else, I want to stress that I am not an authority on this; I am white. I recommend reading Aurora Flores-Hostos’ review of the musical for NYU’s Latinx Project.

Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States as it was in the 1940s and 50s when Bernstein and Sondheim were writing West Side Story. While some of the lyrics in this latest adaptation are changed, ostensibly to make them less offensive, the musical doesn’t do much more than pay lip service to the racial and colonial power dynamic embedded in the relationship between Jets and Sharks. The idea seems to be, we empathise with the Sharks because they work hard; we empathise with the Jets because they’re white. There’s really no redeeming quality for most of them.

Tony, sadly, falls on the less-redeemable side. I am disappointed in but not surprised at the choice (not sure whose responsibility it is, Elgort’s or Spielberg’s) to have Tony mispronounce María’s name. I found Elgort’s performance drab and two-dimensional, particularly his singing, which didn’t feel connected to anything about who Tony is as a person. I also found Tony’s new backstory odd — I always thought the main thing that drew María to Tony was their shared innocence. Giving Tony more backstory while leaving María’s the same leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Rachel Zegler is 7 years younger than Ansel Elgort, and while she is Latina, she is not Puerto Rican. This is her film debut and it shows. She has María’s innocence and her vitality, but her accent is a little bit all over the place (though, to be fair, all the “Puerto Rican” accents are), and her singing feels a little empty. She doesn’t allow herself to be truly vulnerable as María; her performance, like Elgort’s, comes across as plastic. I also didn’t feel any real connection between María and Anita in “A Boy Like That/I Have A Love”. Zegler didn’t convince me that her María convinced Anita of her love for Tony and Tony’s love for her.

It is abundantly clear to me that this musical was written and directed by white men, because María isn’t even as much of a person as Natalie Wood’s portrayal of her was in the 1961 film version. This is clearest in the final scene, when María takes the gun from Chino. With Wood, I felt María’s hate as the natural consequence of having loved so fiercely; with Zegler, I don’t really feel that. Part of this is that the dialogue has been changed and María no longer tells the assembled Jets and Sharks that they killed Tony and Bernardo and Riff “not with knives and bullets, but with hate”. Part of it is that I never really felt that this María loved this Tony.

Rita Moreno steals every scene she’s in as Valentina, Doc’s Puerto Rican widow, and her rendition of “Somewhere” gave me goosebumps. Unfortunately, the role is rife with contradictions and a few too many suspensions of disbelief. The fact that the Jets listen to her when they don’t listen to their white girlfriends isn’t explained by the assertion that because Valentina married a white man, she’s seen as white now, especially given Riff’s habit of stealing from her.

Ariana DeBose also stands out as Anita, although she, like María, isn’t really allowed to be as much of a person as the male characters are. Her on-screen treatment as a darker-skinned brown woman doesn’t escape me, especially given that María and Valentina are both lighter-skinned and are both afforded greater respect by every single one of the white characters.

Puerto Ricans deserve better than West Side Story.

West Side Story, directed by Stephen Spielberg, is available to stream on Disney+ with a subscription.