A breathtaking musical spectacle.
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Steven Spielberg has been in the filmmaking industry for over 6 decades and yet, he had never done a musical film, until now. Having seen his magnificent work with West Side Story makes one wonder how he evaded this genre for so long. If anything, his past work has set him up for this very moment.
Spielberg’s West Side Story is the second film adaptation of the 1957 stage musical of the same name by Stephen Sondheim. You can expect minor changes in characters and song arrangements but the core of its story remains.
Taking on a classic is always a hard feat but Spielberg and his team of technical masters pulled it off with such ease with this reimagination. The combination of the film’s beautiful cinematography, electrifying choreography, and classic score is absolutely breathtaking and worth every minute of its 156-minute run time.
The success of West Side Story is of course not without the committed performances of its cast. The film is a boiling pot of triple threats! Most notably are newcomer Rachel Zegler and Broadway's David Alvarez, both of who give faultless performances as siblings Maria and Bernardo.
Then there’s Mike Faist – a Broadway performer best known for originating Connor Murphy in the Tony Award-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen - whose stars have seemed to align for him because he looks and sounds like he was born to play Riff, leader of the Jets.
If anyone is MVP though, it would have to be Ariana DeBose as the feisty Anita. Anita in West Side Story may be a character secondary to Tony and Maria but her name is synonymous with the musical. DeBose had big shoes to fill taking on the mantle after legendary actresses Chita Rivera and Rita Moreno but she proved she could hold her own by delivering a powerful performance that breathed a whole new life into the character. She made it her own and reinforced the notion that Anita is still the best thing about the musical.
We know it’s only January but we're confidently declaring West Side Story the musical event of the year you do not want to miss!
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