REVIEW
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 West Side Story
1962
Certificate: PG | Runtime: 152 | Director: Jerome Robbins & Robert Wise
Starring: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, George Chakiris
 
In New York, two rival gangs, the American 'Jets' and the Puerto Rican 'Sharks' compete for territory. After a chance meeting at a dance, newly rejoined Jet Tony (Beymer) falls in love with Maria (Wood), the sister of Shark leader Bernardo (Chakiris). Together, they dream of a world without gangs and rivalries. However, their love causes further tension between the two gangs, which leads to violence, tragedy and heartbreak.
Musically, West Side Story is at the pinnacle of its genre. Bernstein and Sondheim's songs are rightly regarded as classics, and some of the numbers, such as the glorious 'America', 'Maria' and 'Tonight', truly deserve to live on in perpetuity. But I have never found much of the acting to be worthy of similar accolades, and the central romance is forced, unconvincing and ultimately fails to drive the film forward as it should.
The film isn't completely devoid of good acting, because both Chakiris and Rita Moreno (playing Barnardo's sister Anita) give passionate and energetic performances. Chakiris in particular is both charming and poisonously threatening, while Moreno brings real depth to what is actually a rather underwritten part. Russ Tamblyn is also suitably charismatic as Riff, the leader of the Jets. However, Wood's Maria comes across as a somewhat drab and plain character. There's a sweet innocence to her, but there's not much more than that. Also, the fact that Wood doesn't look remotely Puerto Rican is distracting, as is the dubbing of all her songs by an uncredited Marni Nixon. It's much the same story with Tony as well; Beymer is also dubbed, and delivers a performance so devoid of passion he gives oak a reputation for charisma.
The bland leads also have a problem insofar as the film really doesn't give them enough time to develop their relationship. West Side Story is of course similar in terms of plot to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, but those two eponymous characters actually have some decent scenes together. Like Maria and Tony, their circumstances keep them apart, but the New York based lovers share a genuinely minute length of screen time together. Therefore, the love they express for each other seems false, even armed with the knowledge that in musicals such things are often exaggerated.
The film is also famous for having two directors, which was certainly unusual at the time. It's difficult to tell which director shot which scenes, but in general there's an energetic style to proceedings. The use of bright colours for costumes and sets, combined with Daniel L. Fapp's cinematography and Thomas Stanford's editing, make a number of the musical sequences genuinely thrilling to watch.
However, when all is said and done, West Side Story isn't as emotionally engrossing as it should be. This is because there are only a couple of characters worth caring about, and they most certainly are not the ones the film thinks we should be enamoured with. It still looks great and the songs are brilliant, but the human story here leaves a lot to be desired.© David Mercier
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